


The Love of a Vampire

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Series: Sent to the Witch [2]
Category: Angel: the Series, Charmed (TV 1998)
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 62
Words: 209,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23650201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: As Piper's pregnancy looms, Angel and Paige's relationship deepens while the arrival of new allies prompts the Halliwells and their allies to adopt a new approach towards fighting evil
Relationships: Angel/Paige Matthews, Phoebe Halliwell/Cole Turner, Piper Halliwell/Leo Wyatt
Series: Sent to the Witch [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702660
Kudos: 4





	1. The Next Steps

**Author's Note:**

> This story begins during the events of “A Witch’s Tail”; whatever you don’t see here happened the same as they did in the show

As she slowly opened her eyes to look out of her window at the rising sun, Paige couldn’t stop a slight smile of simultaneous relaxation and disappointment from filling her mind; relaxation at the thought of another calm day at work- things had been pretty quiet on the demon front over the last few months after the vanquishing of the Source and the Seer, to say nothing of them managing to stop Alcathla from sucking the world into Hell-, but disappointment at the realisation that Angel had once again not stayed the night.

Ever since he’d regained his soul, Paige and Angel had made a genuine effort to rebuild their original relationship- she’d never expected that they could just pick up where they’d left off, given that Angel still had to deal with Angelus’s memories of the last few months on top of his own pre-existing guilt-, but they had yet to take their relationship back to the physical level. They’d dated, they’d danced, and they’d shared dinner on more than one occasion over the last few months, but they still hadn’t ‘picked up where they left off’ as far as the… physical… side of things went; they’d both, by an unspoken agreement, decided to wait until they more comfortable to take things all the way.

After all, the last time- hell, the _only_ time- they’d… done _it_ … Angel had lost his soul and become a remorseless killer; just because they’d taken precautions to stop that happening again didn’t stop them being nervous about having to deal with it again.

Neither of them had even needed to talk with Phoebe about it; both of them had silently agreed that it would be best to act like they were starting from scratch with this relationship and take everything from there. The dates had been straightforward and fun, their training sessions as Paige learned further combat skills from Angel were challenging without risking crossing the line, and their occasional shared demon-vanquishing experience was enjoyable without pushing them into going up against anything too big (With Piper’s pregnancy they were trying to avoid ‘Power of Three’-level demons and problems).

Admittedly, Paige still had some way to go with some of her spell work; it hadn’t been anything serious yet, but she’d made more than the occasional mistake while working on potions for any occasions when she’d needed some extra help vanquishing the current bad guy. The red hair she’d picked up from the recent potion mishap in particular had been an unexpected surprise; she’d just put a couple of the wrong herbs in while preparing another standard vanquishing potion, and then she’d looked in the mirror and found out that her hair had turned a brilliant shade of orange-red.

It looked great, of course- Angel had certainly said that he liked it, and she’d come to know when the guy was lying well enough, to say nothing of Piper and Phoebe complimenting it as well once they’d recovered from the shock of the initial ‘explosion’-, but she’d still have preferred it if she’d actually _planned_ for that to happen, rather than it being the freak accident that it was.

Still, freaky cosmetic potion accidents aside, things were going pretty well as far as their personal lives went. Leo had Piper had gone to great lengths restructuring Piper’s old closet to turn it into a nursery for the baby- Angel had volunteered to help out with sorting out some of the materials necessary before Leo got around to installing the window that would naturally limit the aid the vampire could provide-, she and Angel were making at least _some_ progress in rebuilding their old relationship even if it would never be _quite_ the same as it had been, and Phoebe’s new job as an advice columnist was _definitely_ taking off over the last few months.

 _Yep; it’s official_ , Paige reflected, as she sat up in bed, stretching slightly as she glanced over at her wardrobe, already picking out the day’s clothes in her mind. _Life is_ pretty _good_.

Looking back on that moment later on as the events of the next few days unfolded, she would always wonder if she’d jinxed it with that thought.

* * *

  
As Paige walked into her office, still dripping wet from the sudden storm that had started while she was out, she shook her head slightly at the memory of how things had turned out after waking up.

She still couldn’t believe it; she was _really_ getting the hang of this magic thing. True, she’d needed Piper to take out that Borneo demon earlier today- she’d initially been orbing to see about grabbing one of the weapons she’d taken to keeping in her room, but then she’d accidentally orbed into the nursery (Her best guess was that she’d instinctively gone to the location of what could do the most damage to the demon) and Piper had just taken over before she could shift her location-, but she’d picked up a stake and taken a quick detour to take out a small vampire nest- only a couple of the suckers- on her way here to ‘prove’ that she still had it on her way to the courthouse to drop off some files.

 _Maybe I should give Angel a quick ring to ask him to check that out_ , she reflected as she walked over to her cubicle, trying to brush the damp out of her hair as she did so. _After all, in this rain it’s not like there’d be much risk of him being hit by sunlight before he can get there, and the ‘enhanced senses’ thing he’s got going on would_ definitely _help him find anything interesting…_

“Matthews!” Mr Cowans’ voice yelled, cutting off Paige’s train of thought. “In my office, now!”

Pushing thoughts of her boyfriend aside for the moment- whatever Mr Cowan wanted to see her about, it wouldn’t do her any good to look like she was distracted during the conversation-, Paige turned away from her cubicle and walked over to Mr Cowan’s office, grateful that the water was at least slightly warm as she walked through the door; she might be wet, but at least she wasn’t too cold.

“Weather advisory?” she said as she looked at Mr Cowan, trying to wring the remaining water out of her top as she spoke. “If you're gonna go outside, bring a paddle.”

“Where were you?” Mr Cowan asked, sitting back in his chair as he looked critically at her.

“Had to run the Mackenzie papers over to the courthouse,” Paige replied briefly, indicating the door with one hand as she continued to try and drain the worst of the water away from her clothes.

“You’ve been gone an _hour_ ,” Mr Cowan said, his tone slightly incredulous as he looked at her.

“Yeah, well,” Paige replied, shrugging as nonchalantly as she could while still trying to dry herself off, “there’s a freak rainstorm; the entire _city’s_ flooded.”

 _And taking out the vampire nest probably didn’t help matters_ , she reflected silently to herself; that alone had probably cost her around fifteen minutes, given the time she’d taken to come up with the quickest possible means to take them out and the subsequent time to heal, but having found them she hadn’t felt right just abandoning them.

“Well, you should’ve let someone know where you were headed,” Mr Cowan continued, shaking his head slightly as he looked at her. “You have this habit of coming and going as you please.”

“‘As I please’?” Paige repeated. “No; I come and go as _other_ people please.”

(Which was true enough in both her lives, now that she thought about it; she was subject to the orders of her superiors here at the office, and she was forced to go to wherever the demons and vampires were in order to take them out; in neither case did _she_ get to pick where she went or when she did what.)

“That’s what assistants _do_ ,” she continued, a part of her grateful that she’d been here as long as she had been as she placed her hands on her hips while looking at Mr Cowan; you could get away with a _lot_ more when you’d been here as long as she had than you could in the beginning. “They run errands. I’ll tell you a little secret; they don’t like it.”

“Well, your behaviour’s got to change,” Mr Cowan replied, shaking his head slightly as he picked up a cup of coffee on his desk.“Maybe it’ll change if you promote me to social worker,” Paige countered, making sure to keep her tone light; even if she _would_ enjoy the opportunity to spend more time with Angel, it wouldn’t do her any favours in the future.

“I already did,” Mr Cowan replied, a slight smile on his face as he looked at her, his tone still making his authority clear even as his expression became slightly softer as he looked at her. “You start tomorrow.”

Paige could only stare incredulously at him as he sipped at his cup of coffee.

Whatever else she’d been expecting to hear from him, she _hadn’t_ been expecting _that_ …

* * *

  
As he slowly blinked his eyes open- he hardly ‘slept like the dead’, but he could still be a deep enough sleeper when the time came, particularly after the previous night-, Angel briefly wondered what had woken him up, before his ears finally detected the familiar sound of his cell phone; it had been one of the things Paige had insisted he buy after his soul had been restored to him, so that she could check on him whenever she wanted.

True, he sometimes forgot to charge it- you tended to lose touch with the world after spending the better part of a century hiding in alleys and eating rats, but he was getting better at it…

“Hello?” he asked, as he tapped the ‘Accept Call’ button and held the phone to his ear.

“ _Hi_ ,” Paige replied, her voice, as it always did, making Angel feel better about the day ahead (Angelus’s newest memories still haunted his dreams at night, but hearing the warmth in Paige’s voice always helped him deal with that particular issue). “ _How’s things_?”

“Is something wrong?” Angel asked, sitting up in bed as he listened anxiously for Paige’s response. She might be one of the most compassionate people he’d ever met, but Paige knew him well enough to know that he would let her know if something had happened to him since they last parted company, which could only mean that something was wrong at _her_ end.

“ _Well, depends on your definition of ‘wrong’, really_ ,” Paige replied. “ _My boss just promoted me to full-time social worker_.”

“He did?” Angel replied, smiling slightly as he sat up in bed. “Nice work; congratulations.”

“ _Yeah…_ ” Paige replied, her tone sounding uncertain.

Angel frowned.

“This… _is_ good news, isn’t it?” he said uncertainly, nearly moving the phone away to look at it in the absence of Paige before he remembered that Paige couldn’t hear him if he held it too far away. “I mean, you’ve worked so hard at that office, and now they’re finally showing their appreciation…”

“ _Well, Cowan gave me this big speech about responsibility and not coming to work late, no long lunches, things like that_ ,” Paige admitted, sounding like she was sighing over the phone. “ _I just… well, seriously,_ how _am I going to manage that if I’ve got my witch-related duties to deal with? Piper might be lucky enough to own her own business, and Phoebe can pretty much work on her column whenever she wants- even if she’s got a_ lot _of other stuff to deal with to publicise it-, but me? It’s hard enough finding time_ now _; how am I going to do the job right_ and _protect innocents_?”

Angel sighed.

“I… as much as I wish I could help you, Paige, I’m _really_ not the best person to ask for career advice,” he said, shaking his head in frustration at his inability to help the woman he loved with this latest problem. “I never really had a job myself when I was alive, and as for after I was sired…”

“ _Yeah, I know; not really easy to get a job where you can_ guarantee _you won’t be exposed to sunlight at any point these days, is it_?” Paige replied, allowing herself a slight chuckle before she continued. “ _I don’t know… I think I just wanted to tell_ someone _, you know_?”

“Yeah,” Angel replied, nodding sympathetically as he reached over to grab his clothes, shrugging on his shirt even as he continued to listen to Paige. “Sometimes, we all need someone to-”

“ _Hold on; I’ve got a call on the other line_ ,” Paige said, cutting him off mid-sentence as she put her phone down. Angel could just about pick up the sound of her talking on another phone over the line- electronic distortion over the phone lines always made it that little bit harder for him to hear what was going on at the other end, and the phones were never that sensitive to begin with anyway-, before she put the other phone down and picked up the one she’d been talking to him on again. “ _Sorry, but it looks like we’re going to have to cut this short; I just got a call from Piper that Phoebe’s found something we need to deal with_.”

“Right,” Angel said, glancing out of the window as he stood up from his bed; with the rain the way it was, he could probably make it to the Halliwell’s house without even needing to use the sewers (A fact that he was particularly grateful for; with the water the way it was he had a feeling he’d have been forced to swim if he tried going via the sewers). “I’ll see you when we get back to the mansion, OK?”

“ _Gotcha_ ,” Paige replied before she terminated the call.Slipping his phone into his pocket, Angel stood up and grabbed his coat, walking over to the cupboard where he kept his weapons even as he shrugged it on.

Whatever the situation Phoebe had discovered, Angel wasn’t going to go in unarmed; even if he couldn’t do much against the Charmed Ones’ regular class of demon, he was still going to at least _try_ and do what he could.


	2. Meeting Mylie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same rules as last time; whatever you don’t see here- such as the sisters’ conversation in the kitchen where Paige gets frustrated at Piper and Phoebe’s attitudes, or Cole’s initial meetings with Phoebe and Darryl- happened the same as they did in the show

“OK,” Paige sighed as she walked into the lounge of the mansion, putting her bag and umbrella off to one side as she did so, “I just cut work on the day of my big promotion and sped through a rainstorm to get here; what is the nine-”

Her voice trailed off as she saw the sight before her; Piper and Leo were standing behind the couch while a young woman with short blonde hair lay on it, her bare legs stretched out before her as Phoebe used a hair-dryer over them while sitting on the table, dressed in a pink dressing-gown that Paige couldn’t immediately recognise.

The disturbing thing was, as Paige entered, she saw what looked like _scales_ on the woman’s legs before they vanished under the hot air being generated by the hair-dryer…

“One… one…?” she finished, looking in confusion at the sight before her. She knew that it wasn’t the most polite thing to do, but she could hardly help it if it was a bit of a surprise to come home and find someone with scales on her leg, even if the scales had just vanished as she entered.

“Phoebe found a mermaid,” Leo said by way of explanation (It wasn’t much, Paige freely admitted, but at least it accounted for the scales; maybe the girl just lost her tail when she wasn’t wet or something like that).

“Actually, she found me,” Phoebe corrected. “On the way to a _very_ important court date, I might add…”

Paige was just grateful that Phoebe had been laughing when she said that; as much as she wanted Phoebe to finish the issue of Cole’s continued legal presence in her life as soon as possible, she didn’t want to give the woman who seemed to be their latest innocent the wrong impression about them.

“Hi,” the woman- _mermaid_ \- said, standing up to shake Paige’s hand. “I’m Mylie; you must be Paige.”

Before Paige could reply to that, the door opened once again, the familiar sound of Angel’s footsteps soon reaching her ears as he walked towards the lounge.

“OK,” he said, as he walked into the room, “what’s the sit- uh, hi?” he said, nodding uncertainly at Mylie as he registered her presence. “I’m-”

“Angel, right?” Mylie said, stepping forward to shake his hand with a broad smile as she looked between the two of them. “I know who you are; the two of you have a _very_ big underwater fan base.”

“Really?” Angel said, blinking in surprise at that statement; only the slight smile on his face betrayed how pleased he was to hear that comment.

“You’re a mermaid?” Paige said, barely even registering Angel’s smile as she stared incredulously at the woman before her. “You guys actually _exist_?”

“Uh, excuse me,” Piper said, raising an inquiring hand to attract Mylie’s attention, “when you said “sea hag”, did you mean like “old woman” hag or “evil magic” hag? Because see, I'm not really in the battle mood today…”

“Uh… she’s kinda both,” Mylie replied, looking apologetically at Piper.

“Uh- _huh_ ,” Piper said, looking away from Mylie in a manner that made it clear how uncomfortable she was with the current topic.

“Forget _that_ ,” Paige said, waving a hand dismissively as she looked at Mylie with renewed interest; hopefully if she focused Mylie’s attention on her- particularly by discussing relatively trivial matters-, the mermaid wouldn’t think too much about Piper’s rudeness. “What’s life like under the sea? Does your skin get wrinkly? Does algae pose a personal hygiene problem?”

“Uh, Paige?” Angel said, walking over to place a hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder. “Maybe we should just give her some time…”

“No, it’s OK; I don’t mind,” Mylie said, nodding reassuringly at Angel before she turned back to Paige. “Actually, there's nothing like being a mermaid. Swim in the open sea all day… explore endless wonders… it's… it’s pure freedom.”

“Sounds like heaven,” Phoebe said, standing up as she spoke. “I’m sure you want to get back; I can drop you off at the beach on my way-”

“Wait, you don’t understand,” Mylie interjected, looking over at Phoebe. “It _was_ a great life… for the first few hundred years.”

“You’re immortal?” Angel said, looking at Mylie with renewed understanding; Paige supposed that if anyone was going to understand _that_ particular problem it would be Angel, even if his immortality wasn’t the same ‘type’ as Mylie’s (After all, Mylie certainly didn’t _seem_ to be technically dead).

“Yeah,” Mylie confirmed, nodding at Angel. “We can spend eternity at sea, because our hearts are… well, some say are as cold as the water. But sometimes a mermaid gets lonely, and her heart warms, and… she wants more.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Angel asked, looking with a renewed sympathy at the mermaid. Paige briefly wondered if she should feel jealous, but quickly pushed that thought aside; from what Angel had told her of his initial meeting with Whistler, he’d lived pretty much the same way that Mylie had- in the ‘disdaining human emotions and contact’ sense; life on the streets _definitely_ wasn’t as interesting as life in the ocean sounded- prior to meeting her, so it was only natural he’d sympathise with her.

“The ocean’s floor is littered with bones of mortals who died for love; I just… felt that I had to know _why_ ,” Mylie explained, looking up at Angel. “You can understand that, right?”

“Better than you can imagine,” Angel confirmed, reaching over to give Paige’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze; Paige returned the gesture with a soft smile as she glanced back at him.

“Now, these… bones-” Piper began.

“Is that why you went to the sea hag?” Angel interjected; clearly he’d recognised, like Paige had, where Piper was most likely going with that particular line of questioning and wanted to cut it off before she could get started. “So that you could feel love?”

“Yes,” Mylie confirmed, nodding at Angel. “If a mortal professes his love to a mermaid, she becomes human. The sea hag agreed to give me legs, but if I didn't find love before her deadline I would have to give her my immortality.”

“All that for a guy?” Phoebe said, an incredulous smile on her face as she stood up from the table. “Boy, did you get taken for a ride…”

“I’m making an effort to _not_ be insulted here,” Angel said, looking pointedly over at Phoebe as Paige tried to suppress an amused smile. Angel still wasn’t great at it, but he could actually sound almost human on some occasions after spending the last few months out with her again; given how quiet he’d been before he started dating her, she regarded any kind of progress as good progress right now.

“But I did find love,” Mylie said, her tone sounding uncertain even as she spoke.

“I-I mean, um… I think I did,” she admitted, growing increasingly uncomfortable as Phoebe looked at her. “But… I might be dead before I get to find out for sure; Craig's getting on a plane to New York soon.”

“Oh, no-no-no, this is good,” Piper said, looking around at the others. “All we gotta do is find the fish lover, get him to spill his guts and then we don't have to face the sea hag.”

“Piper!” Paige said, glaring over at her sister.

“What?” Piper asked.

Deciding to put the issue of Piper’s nonchalant reaction aside for another time- with an innocent mermaid at risk, nothing could be accomplished by them getting into an argument right now, even if Piper’s sudden non-confrontational attitude didn’t exactly encourage her-, Paige turned back to look at Mylie. “If your boyfriend's love can make you human, why don't you just tell him you're a mermaid?”

“You mean, that I'm a genetic freak with a fish tail coated in glandular slime?” Mylie countered, a sceptical expression on her face as she looked back at Paige.

* * *

  
“She raises a good point,” Leo said, nodding slightly as he indicated Angel. “I mean, look how long it took you to admit to Paige that you were a vampire.”

“That’s not _really_ the same thing,” Angel replied; he wasn’t denying that the essential facts were similar, but he’d hardly concealed his identity solely because of what he was. “I mean, Paige already _knew_ about the supernatural by the time I met her-”

“Uh, as fascinating as it is for my love life to be used as an example at a time like this, can we please stick to _Mylie_ here?” Paige said, looking up at Leo and Angel before she turned back to Mylie. “Look, you may be half fish, but you're still a woman, and women… you know, they generally know when a man's in love even before he does.”

“Oh, puh- _lease_!” Phoebe said, almost laughing as she looked at Paige. “If I wrote that slop in my column I'd be driven out of town!”

“OK, that is _it_!” Paige said, glaring over at her sisters as she stood up. “Can I see you two in the kitchen?”As the three sisters walked out of the room, Angel and Leo exchanged a brief, awkward glance; this was the first time Angel had really been alone in a room with any member of the Halliwell family other than Paige since his soul had been restored.

“So,” Angel said after a moment’s pause, turning to look at Mylie. “How did you _meet_ …Craig… anyway?”

“Uh… ran into him at a coffee house while I was looking for a job,” Mylie replied, looking almost amused at the normality of the encounter. “He bought me a drink, we started talking, and, well…”

She shrugged. “What can I say?”

“Hey, at least it’s simpler than how I met Paige; a balance demon took me to see her and then I actually _met_ her a few months later after I’d… cleaned up a bit,” Angel said, smiling uncertainly at Mylie as he sat down beside her; social conversation still wasn’t something he’d quite managed to get the hang of, but at least for the moment he had somebody to talk to who wouldn’t ask any awkward questions if he did anything stupid.

“Yeah, Craig and I definitely met in a more… traditional… way,” Mylie said, smiling slightly at the vampire before she sighed. “It’s just… have you ever had that feeling where you know you did something wrong without knowing _what_?”

Angel shrugged.

“All the time,” he said, smiling reassuringly at her. “It’s always hard to know how they’ll react to what you do when you’ve spent years operating outside society; watching stuff happen from the outside’s no substitute for living in it.”

“I’ve always felt that you should just go with what you feel you should do; if he loves you, he’ll be prepared to ignore any little ‘quirks’,” Leo added, nodding reassuringly at Mylie before he stood up. “Well, I’ll just check to see how things are going through there;

As Leo turned and headed towards the kitchen, Angel was only slightly surprised to see Phoebe run past the Whitelighter as she hurried out of the kitchen (Angel didn’t bother trying to say anything to her; Leo and Piper might have been more accepting of his return to their lives since he regained his soul, but his relationship with Phoebe was still awkward at best) and ran towards the door; evidently she wanted to get the court date dealt with as soon as possible.

“Uh… is she all right?” Mylie asked, looking anxiously at Angel as she indicated the direction that Phoebe had just walked in.

“Don’t worry, it’s not you,” Angel said; his social skills might not be the best, but even he knew when someone was worried they’d caused offence. “She’s just… well, she’s had a busy time of it lately, and you just caught her in the middle of something she’d like to take care of; it’s nothing personal.”

“Oh,” Mylie said, lowering her head slightly as a regretful expression crossed her face. “I… uh…”

“Didn’t think about timing when you dropped in to ask for help?” Angel finished for her, smiling reassuringly at her. “Trust me, there’s _never_ a good time to have to vanquish evil; all we can do is take it as it comes and hope that it won’t screw up our lives too much. You just came at a bad time, that’s all; we’ll manage.”

“Ex- _act_ -ly my point!” Paige said as she hurried back into the room, followed closely by Leo and Piper. “OK, Mylie, I need to know which flight Craig’s going to be on; I’ll see if I can stop him from getting on that plane while Piper, Leo and Angel work on a means of vanquishing the sea hag.”

“Uh… are you sure that’s the right thing to do? Mylie asked, looking uncertainly at Paige. “I mean, what if he decides to-”

“Hey, if you don’t want me to tell him about the mermaid thing, I won’t bring it up; I’m just saying that you need to at least _try_ and give him another chance to tell you how he feels,” Paige said, looking reassuringly at Mylie. “Hey, if I hadn’t given Angel a chance to explain himself back when I first found out he was a vampire, I’d have probably ended up staking the guy; sometimes you need to go with your gut and hope for the best.”

After a moment’s uncomfortable silence as Mylie stared back at Paige, the former- currently indeterminate, Angel amended; Mylie was _still_ a mermaid, she just wasn’t one full-time at the moment- mermaid sighed.

“OK,” she said, her voice low as she spoke. “I’ll… I’ll tell you what I can.”

* * *

  
A couple of hours later, Angel, Leo, Piper and Mylie sat in the living room, currently watching the television as they waited for news from Paige or Phoebe; consulting the Book of Shadows hadn't turned up much about vanquishing the sea hag, so, given her own abilities at spell-writing weren't the best, Piepr had decided that the best thing to do was wait until Phoebe and Paige came back from their current locations. Phoebe, the last they'd heard, was still at the courthouse with Darryl arranging her divorce from Cole, while Paige had orbed to the airport to try and find Craig before he could get on his flight, but given that they didn’t want freak him out _too_ much by introducing magic to him in such a blatant manner, she would only be driving back with him rather than orbing him there directly.

The fact that they’d had to wait this long for Paige to get back at least suggested that she’d managed to convince Craig to come back with her, but that didn’t mean that the waiting was something they enjoyed. Leo had suggested watching the television to try and get a better chance to relax, but so far the results weren’t working; the weather report they’d stumbled across, providing shockingly detailed pictures of the results of the storm that was currently striking San Francisco, had only left Piper even more concerned than she’d been before.

“Now,” Piper said, lowering the volume as she turned to look at Mylie after a picture of a particularly large wave appeared on the screen, “the book says that the sea hag has power over her natural environment; would that be, like… rainstorms?”

“Yeah,” Mylie confirmed. “Rainstorms, hurricanes…”

“Hurricanes?” Piper repeated, looking anxiously over at the mermaid at that last statement.

“Even tidal waves,” Mylie finished.

“Leo…” Piper said, looking over at her husband after a moment’s uncomfortable pause, “she said tidal waves; how far do tidal waves _travel_?”

“OK, can you two just… give us a moment?” Angel asked, standing up and grabbing Piper’s arm to drag her off to one corner of the room; he freely acknowledged that, as Piper’s husband, Leo had a greater _right_ to talk to her, but at the same time he felt that he was probably the better candidate to encourage her to get over this current… mood.

“What’s gotten _into_ you?” he hissed, looking critically at the witch as soon as he was sure they were out of range of Mylie’s hearing. “You’re _supposed_ to be a protector of the innocent; you’re acting like a complete _coward_ right now!”

“Look, is it _my_ fault if I don’t feel like myself at the moment?” Piper countered, hissing in frustration at the vampire. “It’s not like _you_ haven’t stayed out of our fights at times-”

“Staying away from daylight fights because I’d burn up in direct sunlight is _not_ the same as what you’re doing here; you’re panicking just because you had a bad family experience with a demon _like_ this, even though you _defeated_ that demon later!” Angel countered. “Look, can you at least _try_ and make an effort to show that you _care_ about what happens to Mylie?”

“I _do_ care-” Piper countered.

“Then act like you’re actually making an _effort_ , will you?” Angel replied, glaring at her. “Mylie came here for the _Charmed Ones_ ; _give_ her the Charmed Ones and _do_ something to help her, OK?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Piper sighed, before she turned around to look at her husband as he sat on the couch. “Leo, any chance you can check to see if the Elders have anything we can use?”

“Sure,” Leo said, nodding briefly at her and Angel as he stood up. “I’ll try and be quick.”

No sooner had Leo orbed out of the room than the sound of the front door opening was heard in the room, followed closely by Paige walking in the living room followed by a tall man in a suit who- judging by the way he looked at Mylie- could only be Craig.

“Hey,” Craig said, smiling uncertainly at Mylie.

“You came?” Mylie said, standing up to look at him with an uncertain expression on her face.

“Yeah, Paige… told me your life was in danger,” Craig said, nodding briefly at her, his uncertainty about this situation flashing briefly across his face before he assumed a more serious expression. “What’s going on?”

“I need to know how you really feel about me,” Mylie answered.

Craig couldn’t stop a frustrated sigh from escaping his lips at that comment; evidently Mylie had been trying to convince him to talk about this subject for a while now.

“I can’t believe we’re back on _this_ ,” he groaned, before he turned to look at Angel, Piper and Paige. “What, are you three in on this joke or what?”

“Trust me on this; this is _not_ a joke,” Angel said, shaking his head resolutely. “I _get_ how strange this might seem, but you _have_ to tell her how you feel-”

“What is this, the Delusion Club?” Craig said, cutting Angel off before he turned back to look at Mylie. “Come on, tell me what’s _happening_.”

“I…” Mylie began, before she seemingly lost her nerve and shook her head. “I can’t.”

“‘You can’t’?” Craig repeated, looking incredulously at the part-mermaid before him. “You yank me out of a business meeting, your friend ambushed me at the airport, I miss my plane and you can't tell me why?”

“No…” Mylie replied apologetically, her voice low.

“OK, buddy,” Piper said, stepping forward to glare at Craig. “Look, you _obviously_ wouldn't be here if you didn't care, so why don't you just… _tell_ her that you love her, for crying out loud?”

“Piper, _relax_ ,” Paige said, leaning over to speak to her sister in a low whisper.

“What?” Piper said, glancing back at Paige. “If he doesn’t do this, then we’ve gotta fight the evil… person,” she amended at the last minute, evidently remembering to take Craig’s continued presence into account.

“You know what?” Craig said, raising a frustrated hand to cut off any further conversation before Angel could even try to say something to defuse the situation. “I'm outta here.”

“Craig, wait!” Mylie yelled, standing up to move after him, prompting him to turn around and look at her. “You want to know what I’m hiding from you?”

Reaching over to a vase that was positioned on a nearby table, Mylie removed the flowers that were currently inside the vase and sat back down on the sofa. “OK.”

“Mylie, _don’t_ -” Angel began, before the mermaid in question tipped the vase water over her legs, causing her legs to almost automatically grow gold scales and merge together to become her old tail.

 _Great_ … Angel groaned inwardly, as Craig stared in shock

“Please,” Mylie said, looking pleadingly at Craig, “don't be afraid; it's still me.”

“What… what _are_ you?” Craig asked, clearly shocked at the sight before him. “Geez…”

Before anyone could move to stop him, he raced out of the door, leaving the mermaid, the vampire and the two witches to stare at the area where he had once stood, a clearly devastated look on Mylie’s face as Paige and Angel exchanged sympathetic glance with each other.

They’d barely had any time to realise what had just happened before a gust of wind blew through the living room, culminating in a woman in what looked like her mid-fifties simply appearing in the middle of the room out of a pool of hat looked like water but was almost certainly anything but normal water.

If this wasn’t the Sea Hag, Angel would be _very_ surprised…

“Did you find a vanquishing spell?” Paige asked, looking anxiously over at Piper, only to see her sister backing away from the Sea Hag, her face blank even as her eyes clearly conveyed terror.

“Piper, _freeze her_!” Angel yelled, shifting into a combat stance even as Piper flicked her hands at the woman standing before them. As the woman raised her hand to create a water ball of some sort, Angel seized his chance; before she could do anything, Angel lunged towards the woman, arms outstretched as he prepared to grab her and hurl her to the floor…

Only for him to fly right through her and hit the wall behind her, his hair and coat suddenly as wet as if he’d decided to go swimming while fully dressed; evidently the sea hag was only as solid as she needed to be to accomplish whatever goal she had in mind. Even as he rolled over to get back onto his feet, Angel heard the sea hag hurl the water ball at something before he suddenly took a powerful blast of water directly to his face, preventing him from fully registering what was going on in front of him as he was sent hurtling into the wall once again.

The subsequent impact was so powerful that Angel was more than slightly certain that he would have broken his neck if he’d been a human; as it was, he was going to be out of it for a few minutes even with his vampire strength and endurance. Even with his best effort, Angel could only just focus enough to hear what sounded like running water and Mylie calling to someone for help… something was wrong… he _knew_ he had to do something…

Then the noise vanished, and, even as he weakly hauled himself back to his feet, his head still ringing from the force of the blow- that water must have hit him _really_ hard-, he could see that it was too late to do any good; Paige was standing in the middle of the living room, dripping wet, and Piper was standing shakily behind the sofa, while Mylie and the sea hag were conspicuous by their absence.

 _Damnit_ … Angel groaned, as he looked around the now innocent-free living room as Paige glared at Piper.

They’d barely even started to deal with their latest crisis, and not only was their innocent was in the hands of the demon they’d been meant to protect her from, but their strongest magic-based fighter was suffering from a panic attack.

There were some occasions where Angel wondered if it wouldn’t have been simpler for him to have just stayed evil after getting his soul back the first time around…


	3. Searches

“She _took_ our innocent?” Phoebe yelled in frustration at Piper as soon as she learned about the situation after returning from the courthouse (She hadn’t actually mentioned how the divorce proceedings had gone, but so far none of them had had the opportunity to ask; they had more important matters to worry about right now). “How could you let _that_ happen?”

“Believe me, I’ve been asking myself that question ever since it happened…” Angel muttered, looking grimly around at the Halliwells as he stood in one corner of the room; only a critical glare from Paige- now in a dry white dress that _really_ looked good on her- prevented him from actually voicing his thoughts to avoid starting an argument at a time like this.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Piper protested, either not hearing or ignoring Angel’s comment. “I-I think I had a panic attack; I couldn't breathe or move!”

“OK, but she took our _innocent_!” Phoebe countered, glaring

“Let’s give Piper a break, OK?” Leo asked, looking around the room in a desperate attempt to restore order that Angel had little intention of participating in; for all his faults when it came to taking part in the fight against what he’d once been a part of, when he’d actually started to fight with the Halliwells he’d committed whole-heartedly to the cause, and yet Piper was having a panic attack after four years in the ‘business’.

“No… she’s right,” Piper put in, shaking her head as she looked at her husband. “I froze up; Mylie’s gone and it’s my fault-”

“No, it’s _not_ your fault,” Leo interjected, turning to address his wife. “It’s your hormones; your maternal instincts are kicking in-”

“They’re _taking over_ , Leo; call it what it is,” Angel interjected, glaring over at the Whitelighter with his arms folded. “We’re trying to save lives here; the _last_ thing we need is for our most powerful magical practitioner to have a panic attack!”

“It’s _natural_ for a mother to feel protective-” Leo began.

“Maybe, but Angel’s got a point,” Phoebe added, looking slightly uncomfortably at Angel- after her experience with Cole she was still slightly uncomfortable around Angel, even if she knew consciously that he and Angelus weren’t as ‘inter-connected’ as Cole and the Source had been- but nevertheless continuing to speak. “Piper’s been handling demons ever since she got pregnant; why the sudden change today?”

“I don’t _know_ …” Piper protested, her tone demonstrating her uncertainty. “I just… I don’t…”

“Look, let’s just focus on finding Mylie,” Paige said, stepping forward slightly to draw attention to her before she looked at Piper. “Did you find anything useful about the Sea Hag?”

“Well… I found a vanquishing spell…” Piper answered, her uncertainty still clear even as she responded to the question; clearly her attack of ‘nerves’ wasn’t going to go away any time soon.

“Right, so we’ve got something that can take her out; do we know where she _is_ at the moment?” Angel asked, only to be met with an apologetic shrug from Piper.

“The Elders say she keeps a cavern on a remote island,” Leo put in, glaring briefly over at Angel before he continued. “She keeps it hidden with charms and spells; the only way to track her is with a mermaid.”

“Well, unfortunately, we’re fresh out of _those_ right now!” Phoebe pointed out, looking over at Leo in frustration.

“Yeah, well… where were _you_ when this all went down?” Piper countered, glaring over at Phoebe.

“I had my _own_ demon to deal with!” Phoebe retaliated, looking back at Piper with an equally intense glare.

“ _The good news_ ,” Paige cut in, in a clear attempt to end the obviously-near-imminent fight before it could start, “is that the sea hag can't steal Mylie's immortality unless she's willing to give it up…”

“Which, after Craig’s rejection, could be sooner than we’d like if she’s given up hope,” Angel put in, his own expression grim as he and Paige exchanged brief glances; neither of them could ever forget how it felt to almost _want_ to die because of the rejection of a loved one.

“I’ll find Craig,” Leo said, stepping forward to look around at the others. “We might still be able to win him over if we move fast enough.”

“Try the airport; he was headed to New York when I found him,” Paige added. Leo nodded briefly in response to Paige’s information before he orbed out of the room.

“I’ll try and locate the-” Piper began.

“ _No_ ,” Angel interrupted, looking critically over at Piper. “You’ve said it yourself; you’re in no shape to deal with all this right now. Paige, Phoebe and I will see what we can find about the hag; _you_ need to rest if you’re going to be of use to anybody.”

“He’s got a point; if you’re not going to rest for _your_ sake, then rest for our niece’s, OK?” Paige asked, looking over at Piper with a pointed glare.

After a moment’s uncertain silence, Piper sighed and nodded.

“OK…” she said, nodding as she lay down on the couch.

“I’ll join you two in a minute,” Angel said, indicating the kitchen with a brief, uncomfortable expression on his face. “I have to… y’know…”

“Oh… uh, sure,” Paige said, nodding in understanding as Angel headed into the kitchen, quickly understanding what he meant; he was starting to get ‘hungry’.

It wasn’t that she didn’t _want_ to see Angel feed- it could be a bit disturbing watching the guy she loved swallow down actual blood, of course, but she’d mostly gotten over it-; it was just that…

Well, after seeing the bodies Angelus had left during his brief little reign of terror during that period when his soul had been lost again, she supposed it was only natural that they’d take a little time feeling… comfortable… around Angel whenever he was doing… vamp things.

“C’mon,” she said, turning to look at Phoebe as she indicated the stairs leading to the attic. “When I was drying off I came up with a couple of other potential spells we could use to get past anything the Sea Hag might try and throw at us; I’d appreciate it if you could take a quick check over them.”

* * *

  
A few minutes later, Paige was beginning to regret her decision to ask Phoebe for advice; her sister seemed to be taking _ages_ to come to _any_ kind of decision about her spell-writing abilities, and they _still_ had to come up with a decent plan to _find_ the Sea Hag in the first place.

She wondered if that was one of the reasons she liked working with Angel on his vampire-hunting patrols so much; vampires might be physically tough, but taking them down was fairly straightforward once you knew what you were doing and had the right weapons.

With _magic_ , on the other hand…

It was a lot cooler to just be able to chant a few words and vanquish the bad guy, don’t get her wrong, but you still need to know the _right_ words to pull it off, and then there were those demons who required more than just the simple spells to take them out of the running…

“This is reallygood,” Phoebe commented at last, breaking into Paige’s train of thought as she studied the spell. “Adding Eastern thinking to Western wicca; it should definitelybreak through the Sea Hag’s protective charms…”

Further conversation was cut off as Paige’s phone began to ring, prompting Phoebe to glance back at her sister when Paige didn’t take the phone out. “Are you gonna answer that?”

“Uh, no, it’s just my boss,” Paige replied, sighing slightly in frustration. “I’ve been gone all afternoon trying to crack this mess.”

“OK, then can we turn it off?” Phoebe prompted, indicating the phone with a slight wave of her hand as Paige pulled it out of her.

“Do you think it’s possible to get promoted _and_ fired on the same day?” she asked, looking uncertainly at her sister.

“Paige, please, just turn off the phone…” Phoebe countered, shaking her head as she indicated the mobile in her sister’s hand.

“You know,” Paige sighed, waving the phone in her hand as she looked at her immediately older sister, “maybe in our new destiny this job just isn't meant to be!”

“OK!” Phoebe said, grabbing the phone and slamming it to the table, frustration evident on her face even after the ringing finally stopped.

“Uh… right,” Paige said, looking uncertainly at her sister before she sat down opposite her. “Is something… _wrong_ , Phoebe?”

After a moment’s silence, Phoebe finally spoke.

“He’s back,” she said simply.

“Who?” Paige asked, her mind already going over the possible identities of ‘he’; Spike seemed the most likely candidate, but she didn’t see Phoebe getting that worked up over him…

“Cole,” Phoebe replied.

“ _What_?” Paige said, staring incredulously at her sister.

Reaching into her purse, Phoebe pulled out a letter opener and showed it to Paige; it didn’t take more than a cursory glance to confirm that the opener’s blade had been slightly eaten away as though it had been dipped in acid, its formerly smooth edge rough and slightly jagged.

“This is his _blood_ ,” Phoebe explained, looking urgently at her sister as she indicated the opener. “Blood is _not_ supposed to do that!”

“You stabbed him?” Paige asked, looking at Phoebe in surprise.

“Yeah,” Phoebe replied. For a moment Paige thought about congratulating her for that, but swiftly decided against it. After all the effort Angel had gone to before he’d lost his soul to give Cole another chance, she hardly felt like she was in any kind of position to offer Phoebe advice on what to do about him; given that she was torn between her dislike of Cole- the Source’s powers might have corrupted him, but he’d still been fundamentally _him_ \- and her desire to at least _try_ and see Angel’s point of view- she wasn’t sure what advice she’d give Phoebe even if she’d asked.

“He wants me back,” Phoebe continued, looking urgently at her sister. “He wants me back and I just want to run, as fast and far as I can. I swear, if I had your power, Paige, I would… orb myself to a rock in the middle of the city. He has put me through so much and I just… I don't want to go through it again.”

“OK, running is _not_ the answer,” Paige said, leaning over slightly to glare more pointedly at her older sister. “Did I run from Angelus? You shouldn’t run from Cole; you’ve built a _great_ life for yourself-”

“That doesn’t _matter_ ,” Phoebe protested, sounding like she was going to start crying at any moment. “I’m too tired to fight him…”

“Fight who?” a voice said from the stairs leading up to the attic. Spinning around to face the speaker, Paige wasn’t sure whether to relax or tense up as she saw Angel standing there; while she was grateful that they wouldn’t have to tell Piper about Cole’s return just yet, telling Angel about his old friend’s return was _never_ going to be easy…

“Cole’s back,” she said at last, realising from Angel’s prompting glare that she’d remained silent for too long already; their relationship was awkward enough after what Angelus had done to it without her lying to him.

“He’s back?” Angel repeated, looking at Paige in surprise before he turned to look at Phoebe, an uncomfortable expression on his face as he studied her; it hardly took a genius to realise that Phoebe was far from thrilled at this latest development. “Uh… are you… OK?”

“OK?” Phoebe repeated, standing up to look at Angel with renewed hostility. “Of _course_ I’m not OK, Angel; the guy who tried to _impregnate me with his demon spawn is back_ -”

“Does the fact that the Source’s powers would have been influencing his actions at that point mean _anything_ -?” Angel began.

“ _DON’T_ try and… _defend_ him, Angel!” Phoebe interrupted, jabbing her finger on Angel’s chest as she seemed to come ever closer to breaking down. “Y’know, just because _you_ can go on about how your _demon_ isn’t _you_ doesn’t mean _everything’s_ that simple, OK? Cole has all these… new demonic powers now; I don’t know what he wants or what I could do to stop him _getting_ it-”

“Look, can we just… I don’t know, focus on the Sea Hag issue, _then_ worry about Cole being back?” Paige asked, stepping forward to stand between her sister and her boyfriend, hands raised in what she hoped was a calming gesture. “Look, Phoebe, once we’ve dealt with this I’ll test Cole’s blood and try and come up with a magic way to keep him away-”

“Let me talk to him first,” Angel said, cutting Paige off mid-sentence as he looked pointedly at her. “I _know_ Cole; if he’s any kind of threat, _I’ll_ figure it out.”

“And why should we just… _let_ you do that?” Phoebe asked, her arms folded as she directed her gaze to Angel, apparently bringing herself under control with a more immediate confrontation with a less personal ‘foe’. “The last time you two met you were both trying to ‘claim’ me and Paige-”

“OK, do I have to say this again; Angel is _not_ Angelus!” Paige yelled, spinning around to glare in frustration at her sister. “He has a _soul_ now; _Angelus_ is the demon who’s in control of him when the soul isn’t _there_! It’s _not the same_!”

“It is,” Angel stated.

Paige paused for a moment, confusion evident on her face as she turned to look at Angel.

“Huh?” she asked.

“Cole’s soul might still have been in his body while my soul was completely banished from mine at that point, but that doesn’t mean that it was _completely_ in control of his actions at the time,” Angel said, looking pointedly back at Paige as he folded his arms while continuing to speak, his attitude making it clear to Paige that he was speaking as Cole’s friend rather than her lover at the moment. “The dark magic of the Source could exert its own influence over him even after the original Source died; if the Source had been alone in that body, do you _really_ think he would have gone to so much effort to _pretend_ to be Cole all that time when he could have just killed you?”

“He wanted a magical heir-” Phoebe began.

“He could have achieved _that_ just by exerting enough control over you to make you receptive to his advances and then keep you somewhere secure until you gave birth; he didn’t _have_ to go to all the effort of winning you over,” Angel countered, his glare shifting to Phoebe. “Cole wasn’t himself back then, I get that, but there was still enough of him in there to _want_ your love; hell, part of the reason Angelus felt confident enough to even make contact with the guy was because he felt that there was enough of Cole left there to make the Source not _want_ to kill him because Angelus was all that was left of _me_.”

Paige didn’t even need to ask what Angel meant about that. Angel and Cole might not have acquired them in the same manner, but they’d still been the only two true demons with souls in the world (Angel had told her about a few of the more physical demons- similar to vampires, really; they used their fists rather than magic when they were fighting- who were so inclined towards pacifism that they’d even been known to have _kids_ with humans, but Paige didn’t consider them ‘demons’ in the same sense as the magic-based demons she and her sisters dealt with on a more regular basis; the tendency those guys had to hang around in the Underworld made them a bit… _less_ human than those who lived up here, in Paige’s opinion).

She might not exactly _like_ the fact that Cole hadn’t had the ‘decency’ to just be a straightforward bad guy even when he was the freakin’ Source of All Evil, but she couldn’t deny that Angel had a point; Cole hadn’t been _completely_ corrupted by the Source.

After Angel and Phoebe had glared at each for a few moments, Phoebe finally sighed in frustration.

“Just… don’t make me _talk_ to him, OK?” she said, looking in frustration at Angel. “I… look, I’m not saying I don’t... _kind of_ get your point, but I just…”

“You’re not comfortable being alone with him right now; I get that,” Angel said, nodding briefly in understanding. “Don’t worry; when I go to him, I’ll do it alone.”

With that said, he turned to look at Paige, his expression making it clear that all Cole-related matters were being put to the side until further notice. “Anyway, right now we’ve got the Sea Hag to deal with; what’s our strategy?”

“Well,” Paige said, grateful for Angel’s decision to focus on more immediate matters- things were complicated enough where Cole was concerned without them focusing on him when they had another crisis to deal with-, “I’ve got a spell that _should_ let us find the Sea Hag; all we need is Piper…”

“And I’m here,” Piper said, walking into the attic as she looked around at her sisters, clasping her hands together resolutely. “OK, let’s go, we’ve got a job to do.”

“Are you sure?” Angel asked, looking pointedly at Piper; Paige wasn’t sure if she should feel touched or offended at Angel’s concern for her, given that he was simultaneously criticising her sister.

“Well, I don’t have a choice, do I?” Piper replied, shrugging as she indicated herself, Paige and Phoebe. “It’s a Power of _Three_ spell, right?”

Taking a deep breath, Piper stepped towards Phoebe and Paige, Angel stepping back slightly as the eldest sister moved into position; right now, this was a strictly ‘Halliwell-only’ case, rather than something where he could make any useful contribution. “Let’s go; Mylie needs us now.”

“OK,” Paige said, as Phoebe passed out the copies of the spell she’d made to the other two, “if this works, it should take us straight to the Sea Hag.”

As Angel stepped back slightly- his knowledge of the Halliwell’s magic meant that he was never certain whether standing too close to them would disrupt the spell or something like that-, the three sisters raised the pieces of paper before them and began to read.

“ _Power of the witches rise,  
_ _Find the hag who speaks in lies,  
_ _Balanca chakra focus chi,  
_ _Lead us through the cruel cruel sea_.”

For a moment, there was silence, the three witches looking uncertainly around at each other as though waiting for something to happen, only for Phoebe to suddenly fall to the ground, letting out a brief yelp as she did so. Angel instinctively moved forward to try and help Phoebe get back onto her feet, only to realise as he stepped forward that such an action wouldn’t accomplish anything; she no longer _had_ feet.

What she _did_ have was…

“A _tail_?” Phoebe yelled, looking incredulously at the long golden tail that had now replaced her legs, before redirecting her gaze to glare at her sisters. “You gave me a _tail_? What was the point of turning me _into_ a mermaid?”

“Uh… look, I have an idea or two, but could we maybe get you to the beach before we start to talk about it; I’m really not sure if you have any actual _need_ to be in water, but I’d rather not find out the hard way…” Paige said, hurrying over to crouch down beside Phoebe, beckoning Piper over to help her haul Phoebe to her… tail… before she glanced over at Angel. “Sorry, but, well… y’know, the _beach_ -”

“Far from being somewhere I can go when you can’t think of a convenient cave to orb us to; I understand,” Angel said, reassuringly raising his hand as he nodded in acceptance at Paige’s point. As much as he might want to be there when they went after the Sea Hag, if the spell had turned Phoebe into a mermaid to help them find her, than the search would have to begin somewhere where a vampire would be _very_ out of place at this time of day.

“Hold on; the _beach_?” Phoebe yelled, looking over at Paige in frustration. “You are _not_ just going to _drag_ me off-”

Whatever Phoebe had been about to say was cut off mid-sentence as Paige orbed herself and her sisters away, leaving Angel standing alone in the attic as he stared at the space where they had been mere moments ago.

After waiting a few moments in case Paige came back- she might have spotted a convenient cave or something where he could stay in case they ended up needing his help-, Angel turned around and walked out of the attic, heading down to the kitchen to grab a quick glass of blood and take advantage of the silence to have a brief think.

To say that things had suddenly become ‘interesting’ in the last couple of days was a _serious_ understatement…  
Abrupt ending, I know, but I just didn’t think there was anything to be gained by having Angel tag along in the confrontation with the Sea Hag other than awkward questions as the Charmed Ones tried to explain why Craig shouldn’t be worried about being in the same room as a vampire, to say nothing of how Angel could cope being on a beach (Carrying a blanket around might protect him, but he’d just look stupid standing there waiting and he wouldn't actually be able to contribute much to the fight in that kind of shape anyway).


	4. The Vampire's Advice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode takes place _just_ after the end of “A Witch’s Tail- Part One”; essentially, everything that happened after the sisters left to find the Sea Hag- the Hag dying, Mylie and Craig reuniting, Phoebe leaving as she ‘surrenders’ to her mermaid nature- was unchanged from the original episode, but now things are going to SIGNIFICANTLY diverge from the original episode…

As Angel sat in the mansion’s main living area, thoughtfully sipping at a glass of blood as he contemplated his next move, he was already beginning to at least partly regret his decision to become involved in the Halliwells’ lives; things had been a lot simpler back when he just had himself to worry about, even if this new life was definitely more interesting than things had been back then.

He knew what he _wanted_ to do, of course- talk to Cole and do what he could to help his old friend overcome his old/new demonic instincts that he’d have to deal with due to his new powers-, but at the same time he had little to no real idea _how_ he was going to accomplish that. For all that he’d told Paige he and Cole weren’t that different, in the end Cole had still been primarily responsible for the decisions he’d made as the Source; the fact that his judgement would have been ‘affected’ by the Source’s magic didn’t change that fact. He might not be the Source any more, but from what he’d overheard Phoebe and Paige discussing Cole had acquired at least some powers from the demonic Wasteland before he came back; Angel had no way of knowing how the powers Cole had acquired under those circumstances would affect his mental state…

 _On the other hand_ , Angel mused, taking another sip of his blood, _I’ll never know the answer to_ that _unless I try to talk to Cole and find out_ what _kind of shape he’s in after coming back_.

He just wished he could be certain of what he could say that wouldn’t run the risk of provoking Cole; at least when he’d been Belthazor and the Source, Angel and Angelus had each known at least _some_ details about what he was capable of in a fight, but that advantage definitely didn’t apply in the current situation…

Further thought was cut off when white light appeared in the middle of the room, leaving Angel with just enough time to glance up and see the last of the orbs fading away to reveal Piper and Paige standing in the middle of the room, each looking more than slightly worried about something.

“What happened?” Angel asked, putting the blood down on a nearby table as he stood up, looking anxiously at the sisters. “Did you find Mylie?”

“Oh, Mylie’s safe as houses; Leo just took her and Craig back to Craig’s house to… y’know, talk things over a bit about the mermaid thing,” Paige said, shaking her head reassuring even as the expression of concern remained. “Unfortunately, now _Phoebe’s_ gone off swimming and we have _no_ idea where she is _or_ how to convince her to turn back into a human before she’s so far gone she’s a mermaid for good, so, overall, it’s not _exactly_ our most successful vanquish ever.”

Angel could only blink in surprise at that last statement.

He had to give the Halliwells credit; ever since he’d met them, his life was _never_ boring…

“She actually swam away?” he repeated, staring in more than slight surprise at the Halliwells. “Even when she was still… well, _herself_?”

“Yeah, apart from the tail and a bit of a fixation with the sea- once she actually got into it-, she still seemed to be thinking normally; Cole must have _really_ done a number on her to make her _that_ eager to get away,” Paige muttered, shaking her head in frustration.

Before Angel could ask for further information, Leo suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, dripping wet and looking more than slightly frustrated.

“Leo!” Piper said, waving her hand at his feet in frustration. “The Persian!”

“I found Phoebe,” Leo replied briefly, evidently deciding that there was no reason to respond to the initial outburst as there was nothing that he could do about it at the moment.

“You did?” Piper said, looking anxiously at her husband. “Well, why didn’t you bring her?”

“She’s too fast… and slippery,” Leo said, looking apologetically at Piper as he shrugged helplessly.

“It’s official; Phoebe’s on the run,” Paige said, shaking her head in frustration.

“On the swim, technically,” Leo pointed out, shrugging slightly at the half-Whigtlighter.

“Well, what the heck’s she _swimming_ from?” Piper asked, groaning as she looked at the others. “She’s got billboards, TV interviews, she got her divorce, she should be _loving_ life!”

“You didn’t tell her?” Angel asked, looking over at Paige.

“Didn’t tell me what?” Piper asked, looking in confusion between the vampire and her half-sister.

“ _Well_ …” Paige said, shrugging apologetically, “I didn’t want to make you mad, you know, you getting so panicky and all…”

“Yes, we’ve established, I was a spineless coward in the face of evil,” Piper said, shaking her head in a dismissive manner; clearly, like Leo, she didn’t want to focus on her mistakes at a time like this. “Now, what don’t I know?”

“Cole’s back,” Paige replied.

Piper’s eyes widened in panic.

“Now, before anyone gets on our cases for keeping this from you,” Angel said, looking pointedly between Piper and Leo as he sat forward, “Phoebe only found out about this today, and I only know because I walked in on her telling Paige; we were planning on waiting until I’d talked to Cole-”

“Hold on; you were going to _talk_ to Cole?” Piper said, looking incredulously at the vampire; Angel got the distinct impression that if she wasn’t so shocked at what he’d just revealed she would have been trying to punch him. “Are you _insane_? He’s the former _Source of All Evil_! You can’t just-”

“ _Former_ Source of All Evil; he’s _not_ the Source any more,” Angel countered, standing up and walking over to stand in front of Piper, placing his hands on her shoulders as he looked at her. “Look, Piper, I _know_ that Cole being back isn’t what you want right now, but you need to calm _down_ ; he’s not _interested_ in you, remember? He’s here for _Phoebe_ , and that’s it; your _baby_ is safe, OK?”

“Hey…” Leo said, looking over at Angel and the remaining Halliwell sisters with an uncertain expression- evidently he wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase what he was about to say-, “maybe _that’s_ what we need; if Cole and Phoebe declare their love-”

“Cole’s love is the _problem_ , not the _solution_ ,” Paige said, raising a hand to halt Leo before he could say anything else.

“Excuse me?” Angel said, turning to look pointedly at his girlfriend (He wished that he could think of a less juvenile term; after she’d literally saved his _soul_ , ‘girlfriend’ seemed such an inadequate term for his relationship to her). “What does _that_ mean?”

“Uh…” Paige said, evidently realising what she had just said and how it could have been taken. “Look, I _get_ that I need to give him a chance, but you have to look at this from Phoebe’s point of view; he turned her into the Queen of the Underworld, impregnated her with his kid, and then she ended up _losing_ the baby after she had to vanquish _him_ to save _us_. I don’t care _how_ willing you’re being to see his side of things; Phoebe’s not exactly going to be the same after all _that_ happened to her!”

“Uh… can we get back to the part where this actually ties in to _anything_ going on here right now?” Piper asked, raising a hand as she looked at Paige in confusion. “What does Cole have to do with Phoebe becoming a freakin’ _mermaid_?”

“Look, Mylie said that mermaids were naturally cold-hearted,” Paige said, shaking her head slightly apologetically as she turned to look at her sister. “Maybe… with Cole’s return and all… her heart went into a ‘deep freeze’ of some kind, so the spell turned _her_ into a mermaid because she was… kinda… already one in an _emotional_ sense?”

As Piper and Leo exchanged sceptical looks, Paige shrugged. “Hey, I know it’s a long shot, but if you’ve got something that works as a better explanation I’d like to hear it.”

“Maybe we could try and prioritise right now?” Angel asked, looking pointedly around at the rest of the group as Piper and Leo continued to look sceptically at Paige. “I’m not saying that figuring out _why_ this happened isn’t important, but right now we should maybe try and figure out how to turn Phoebe _back_ before we worry about that.”

Piper sighed.

“Point…” she admitted, shaking her head in frustration before she turned to look resolutely at Paige. “OK, you and I have to check the Book of Shadows; Leo, see what you can do about finding Phoebe; Angel-”

“Try and find out what Cole’s up to?” Angel asked, partly finishing Piper’s sentence while simultaneously asking for confirmation of her agreement with his plan.

“Yeah, pretty much; just… be careful, OK?” Piper said, looking uncertainly at the vampire. “I mean, I get that you know what you’re doing- who’d know how to talk to demons better than you… and God, that did _not_ come out right-”

“I understand,” Angel said, smiling reassuringly at the witch; he had always appreciated the fact that she, like Phoebe, didn’t go out of her way to rub her awareness of his demon status in his face (Phoebe, on the other hand, seemed to bring it up at least half the time; he supposed that Cole’s betrayal made it hard for her to feel totally comfortable with him). “I’ll see you when I get back; just… don’t do anything stupid, OK?”

“Stupid?” Piper retorted, smiling dismissively at the vampire as Leo and Paige looked slightly uncertainly at her. “Why would I do anything stupid; I’m _over_ that-”

“I’ve known you for less than a year and even _I_ know you’re not going to get over this that quickly,” Angel said, stepping forward to stand more directly in front of Piper, holding up a hand to stop Leo as the Whitelighter moved towards him; right now he had something he needed to say and he wasn’t going to allow Leo to interrupt him. “Piper, I’ve encountered a great deal of witches in my time- both before _and_ after I was cursed-, and when it comes to your type of magic, there’s only one thing I know for certain; _any_ use of magic to deal with emotional problems like this will only backfire-.”

“Hey, I’ve been doing this for four years now; do you _really_ think I don’t _know_ that?” Piper countered, glaring back at the vampire in frustration.

“What I _think_ is that right now your hormones are all over the place and you could easily make a decision that could come back to kick you in the teeth if you do anything significant at this point,” Angel countered, returning Piper’s glare with the cool stare of one who’d had centuries to perfect his ‘art’. “I’ve… encountered… more than my fair share of pregnant women, Piper, and the one thing their… deaths… all had in common was the fact that they did something reckless that would have been dangerous enough if they _weren’t_ pregnant because their hormones were so wild that _anything_ seemed like a good idea at that point.”

“Cheery guy, aren’t you?” Piper said, looking back at the vampire with an expression that suggested she was torn between hitting him and thanking him.

Angel sighed.

“Piper,” he said, stepping forward to place his hands on her shoulders as he looked her in the eyes, “all that I’m saying is that you need to _think_ before you try anything more… extreme… to deal with this current issue. Even if you think that using a spell would help you right now, trust me; it’s not worth the risk; trying to find loopholes in the personal gain law may be excusable when it’s yourself, but when there’s a baby involved as well…”

He sighed slightly. “I just… I don’t want to see _this_ kid dead as well.”

None of the other people in the room asked Angel what he’d meant by that statement; whether he was referring to a specific infant or just the many children that Angelus must have drunk in his lifetime, they didn’t know and didn’t _want_ to know anyway.

* * *

  
After a moment’s silence, Piper smiled slightly at him.

“A vampire giving a _good_ witch advice?” she said, chuckling slightly at the absurdity of the situation. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

“Probably not,” Angel said, smiling slightly back at her before a more serious expression settled on his face once more. “Just remember; whatever else you’re dealing with right now, we’re all here for you.”

Piper wondered which emotion she should consider strangest; the fact that she was actually _grateful_ for the advice of a vampire who’d been trying to _kill_ her only a few short months ago, or just gratitude that he’d reminded her of one thing she’d been so focused on worrying about that she’d almost forgotten.

She’d been so scared of leaving her baby alone like her mother had left _her_ alone that she had almost failed to remember the key difference between her and her mother; she _wasn’t_ alone.

No matter what else happened in her life, she had Paige, Leo, Phoebe- even if she was currently absent right now, they were _going_ to get her back; Piper was resolved on that if nothing else-, and even Angel available to help her deal with the challenges she had ahead.

Her mother might have fought demons alone for most of her life- the occasional help from Grams didn’t count; the two had generally ‘alternated’ demon-hunting ‘duties’ when her mother had been alive and Grams had all but retired after her daugther’s death to protect Piper and her sisters-, but she would _never_ have to fight them alone herself.

Looking up at Angel, she smiled slightly.

“Thanks,” she said at last. “I… I think I needed that.”

Angel smiled back.

“I do what I can,” he said simply.

Then he turned and headed for the door that led to the basement; after Angel’s invitation rights had been restored and he began to spend more time at the manor, Leo and the sisters had set up a small access tunnel to the sewer system a few feet underneath the manor to allow Angel to come and go during the daytime if he had to.

As the vampire vanished down the stairs, there was a brief silence in the manor, Paige and Leo giving Piper time to think about what Angel had just said, before Paige finally spoke.

“Well,” she said, clasping her hands together as she looked around at her sister and brother-in-law, “let’s get down to business, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone questions my decision to have _Angel_ be the one to give Piper advice about the baby rather than one of the others, I chose him because I figured that, due to his time as Angelus, he would be well aware of the psychology of the victim- how they think, how they would react in a certain situation, how to exploit that-, and thus be aware of what Piper might feel like doing in this situation in order to keep herself and the baby safe, simultaneously using that knowledge to encourage her to _not_ go that far


	5. Meeting of the Former Villains

Staring at the files of paperwork in her hand, Paige briefly wondered how she’d managed to allow things to get this desperate this fast.

She’d managed to spend the entire summer working around being a witch, a social work assistant _and_ having a boyfriend (Although she freely admitted that the last one was mainly because Angel already knew about her life as a witch and hence understood whenever she had to leave to do… witch-related stuff), and now here she was, having _finally_ achieved her goal of a promotion to the position of social worker, and things had finally reached a point where they were too much for her to handle.

That was the problem with social work, really; rewarding as anything to know you’d helped to make a difference in someone’s life, but it _really_ took up a lot of your time. Paige had found it tricky enough to keep up with everything she had to do when she was just an assistant; now that she was a full-time social worker she was finding herself rushed off her feet to an even greater extent than she’d been in the past, and she’d barely even really managed to get _started_ on this whole thing.

OK, so she had an excuse for being distracted- the current mess with Phoebe having become a mermaid and Cole being back didn’t _exactly_ make for a relaxed atmosphere, after all-, but that didn’t change the fact that she was now under _way_ more pressure time-wise than she’d been before this promotion and she’d barely been a full social worker for a day…

Glancing down at the file before her, Paige sighed,

 _And_ now _I grabbed the wrong file_ , she groaned, standing up and heading for a nearby filing cabinet, shoving the file into the drawer where she’d originally picked it out from and subsequently removing the _correct_ one from the drawer before she turned around.

“Hey, Paige?” a voice said from behind her, prompting Paige to glance around as she started to head back towards her desk, only to relax as she saw that it was only her boss.

“Mr Cowan,” she replied, nodding briefly at him before she turned around to walk back towards her desk. “Sorry about this, I picked up the wrong file earlier; things have just been _way_ too hectic lately…”

“Yeah, about that; how’s your sister doing after the fishing accident?” Mr Cowan asked, walking after her as Paige she headed for her desk.

“Uh… we’re not sure; we haven’t found her yet,” Paige replied, briefly trying to think of a lie before deciding she might as well give an at least ‘toned-down’ version of the truth; right now she couldn’t spare the brainpower to think of anything else.

“What is she, lost at sea?” Mr Cowan asked, his tone half questioning and half-sarcastic.

“You could say that,” Paige replied briefly, trying to brush his queries off as she drew closer to her desk; she knew that it might seem rude, but right now she _really_ wanted to get back to work and feel like she’d accomplished _something_ with her life right now.

“ _Paige_ ,” Mr Cowan said before she had taken more than a couple of steps in that direction, in a tone which made it clear that he wasn’t going to take a simple brush-off as a response this time around.

“Look, Mr Cowan,” she said as she turned back to look at him, “I may be stubborn at times and late to work often and I don't always know when to shut up- like right now-, but trust me; even if I told you the truth you wouldn't believe me, so if you'll excuse me I have an adoption to save.”

“You forgot insolent,” Mr Cowan added, a slight smile on his face taking the edge off the comment. “You’re very insolent.”

“You’re right,” Paige said, nodding briefly. “Can I go now?”

After a moment’s contemplative silence, Mr Cowan nodded.

“Don’t make me regret giving you this promotion, Paige,” he said, before he turned around and walked away again.

Paige had only just turned around to head back towards her desk once again when she saw, walking towards her, the last person she wanted to see in the current circumstances.

 _Cole_.

“Before you say anything-” Cole began.

“I won’t be _saying_ anything; I’ll _do_ , in the form of-” Paige began, raising one hand slightly in preparation to threaten Cole with the possibility of orbing a certain bodypart somewhere else, only for someone else to suddenly grab her wrist.

“Don’t,” a voice said. “It won’t solve anything, and it would just be attracting attention anyway.”

“Angel?” Paige said, Paige turning slightly to take in the sight of her boyfriend standing beside her. “What are you doing here?”

“Tracking him,” Angel said, jerking his head slightly in Cole’s direction before he turned to look at Cole. “You _really_ are trying, aren’t you?”

“Trying what?” Cole asked, looking slightly curiously at Angel; Paige briefly wondered if there

“To be human,” Angel said simply. “I don’t think you’ve shimmered _once_ since I found you, but you _definitely_ have your powers; the magic’s obvious once you know what you’re looking for.”

“Well,” Cole said, smiling slightly at Angel, “I figured that if you were still Angelus then it was best to make myself a target so I could take you out when you tried to attack me, and if you were _you_?”

He shrugged. “You said it yourself; I’m not letting my powers define who I am.”

“Yeah, great, whoopee for you,” Paige said, shooting a briefly apologetic glance at Angel before she returned her attention to Cole. “You know, the only reason I’m not out there trying to vanquish you-”

A brief squeeze on her wrist from Angel cut Paige off mid-sentence, prompting her to glance behind just in time to see Mr Cowan coming towards her with a folder in his hand and a slightly frustrated expression on his face; clearly he wasn’t entirely happy that Paige was talking when she had work to do.

“Copies of the adoption application and the police clearances,” he said, passing the file to Paige. “Fax them ASAP; it might sway the agency’s decision.”

“I'm familiar with family law,” Cole said, raising a hand slightly to draw Mr Cowan’s attention to him. “Maybe I could do some good here?”

“Didn’t we fire you?” Mr Cowan asked, after a brief pause as he studied Cole, evidently trying to

“Actually, I quit,” Cole said, his expression nonchalant at the memory of his brief attempt to try a normal career for the first time in his existence after he’d initially become human. “But now I'm a partner at Jackman, Carter & Kline.”

“So… what are you doing here?” Mr Cowan asked, a briefly impressed expression crossing his face before he turned his attention back to the question at hand.

“I came to help Paige,” Cole said casually.

“And, since I wanted to see her, he gave me a lift in the process,” Angel added, as Mr Cowan’s eyes started to turn to look curiously at the vampire in a manner that clearly indicated a desire for his presence to be explained. “I’m Angel; Paige and I are… y’know…”

“Oh yeah, _now_ I remember you,” Mr Cowan said, nodding slightly at Angel before a curious expression crossed his face. “Actually, I haven’t seen you around for a while; you been OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine; just… had to deal with some past issues that showed up unexpectedly,” Angel explained, trying not to show how uncomfortable that question made him before he shrugged slightly. “Anyway, it’s over now; I’d prefer we just… don’t talk about it.”

“Fair enough,” Mr Cowan said, nodding in understanding before he turned to look at Paige. “Good call on bringing in him, by the way; a good social worker knows when to use outside resources, and they don't get much better than Jackman, Carter & Kline.”

With that, Mr Cowan put down the file and walked away, leaving Paige and Angel exchanging slightly uncertain glances before Cole spoke again.

“Well, you heard him,” he said, looking nonchalantly at the two of them. “They don’t get much better than me, so let me help you. It won't be any trouble at all.”

“No trouble?” Paige repeated. “You’ve been nothing _but_ trouble!”

“Paige,” Angel said, trying to keep his voice low as he turned to look more directly at her, “this isn’t the time or place for this; it’s not _Cole’s_ fault that Phoebe’s a-”

“Yellowtail?” a woman suddenly said, walking towards Paige with a plastic box in one hand, only to be met with a frustrated glare from the younger woman. “Your… usual lunch order?”

“Ugh…” Paige groaned, pulling a face as she stood up and began to walk away. “No fish; not now, not _ever_.”

* * *

  
As Paige walked away from her desk, Angel looked apologetically at the woman who’d just brought the food in question.

“Sorry about that; one of Paige’s sisters had a… boating accident recently and it’s kind of put her off seafood for a while,” he said, shaking his head slightly apologetically before he glanced over at Cole. “Look, can I just talk to you for a minute?”

“Uh… sure,” Cole said, the two of them subsequently leaving Paige’s desk to head towards a nearby room containing a photocopier. Paige- currently heading for the toilets- initially turned around as though she was about to join them, but Angel briefly shook his head in her direction and she drew back, evidently concluding that it would be best if she allowed Angel to take over at this point.

As soon as he and Cole were inside the room, Angel locked the door and then turned to look at Cole.

“OK,” he said, raising a hand pointedly as he stared at his old friend. “Firstly, I would like to reinforce that I understand you weren’t yourself when the Source was in control, and I am _going_ to try and help you show Paige and the others that you’ve changed.”

“Really?” Cole said, a slight smile crossing his face as he looked at the man who’d been one of the first genuine friends he’d ever really had. “Thanks-”

“Right now, though,” Angel continued, his glare making it clear to Cole that it would be best if he allowed the vampire to say his piece, “this is _not_ the best time to try anything; Phoebe’s turned into a mermaid and Piper and Paige are currently convinced that you’re the reason she wants to stay that way-”

“I’m sorry; did you say Phoebe’s a _mermaid_?” Cole repeated, looking somewhat incredulously at the vampire.

“Yeah, we were trying to track a sea hag, and… well, Paige and Piper think that Phoebe was so desperate to get away from everything that you did to her that she wanted to become a mermaid to escape the emotional pain of what happened to her,” Angel explained, trying not to let his discomfort at the current topic show as he spoke to his old friend; no matter how much more comfortable he was in talking about emotional matters after spending so much time with Paige, his past life in any stage hadn’t exactly left him in a position where he found it easy to discuss how people related to each other emotionally.

“I never _meant_ to hurt her-” Cole began.

“I get that, Cole,” Angel said, raising a hand to stop his friend from going further; making Cole go over his past right now wouldn’t accomplish anything. “Right now, though, that doesn’t matter; Phoebe’s gone missing, and Piper and Paige are so stressed out after recent events that they would _really_ appreciate a problem they can actually hit, and right now you’re their best candidate. I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do to help us-”

“But right now the best thing I can do is stay out of the way and wait until they _aren’t_ looking for someone to kill, huh?” Cole finished, a look of resignation on his face as he looked slightly sadly at the vampire. “Well… I guess we can’t all have things as clear-cut as you, huh?”

Angel blinked.

“Excuse me?” he asked, looking uncertainly at Cole.

“You’re clearly _not_ Angelus; your soul was never present when he was in control,” Cole said, looking at his friend with a slight smile. “I don’t have that luxury of a clear division between who I am and who I was.”

As the demon once known as Belthazor walked towards the door to the office, he paused and briefly glanced back at Angel, a slight smile on his face. “Don’t forget that, Angel; whatever anyone else might tell you, you are _not_ Angelus.”

With that, Cole walked out of the office, leaving Angel looking thoughtfully at the door for a moment before Paige walked into the room herself.

“Everything OK?” she asked, looking slightly uncertainly at her boyfriend as she indicated the door. “I just saw Cole leaving…”

“We’ve… come to an understanding,” Angel said, deciding that it would be best not to tell Paige directly that Cole was going to be sticking around; he was still going to encourage her to give Cole a chance, but with the current situation with Phoebe to worry about it would be best not to add to the stress unless he had to. “How’s things going with you?”

“Well, I _think_ that I can straighten out the paperwork for the adoption if I have a bit more time to check things over-” Paige began, only to be interrupted by a ringing phone coming from her pocket.

“Leo?” Angel asked, looking inquiringly at Paige as she reached into her pocket to pull the phone out.

“Or Piper,” Paige said, glancing briefly at the name on the Caller ID before she raised it to her ear. “Yeah, what’s up?”

After a brief pause, she smiled. “Really? That’s- wait, _what’s_ after her?” she continued, her smile rapidly fading as she listened to the speaker. “OK, I’ll… well, I’ll do what I can, OK? Just give me a few minutes to straighten things out here, and I’ll be right there.”

With that she terminated the connection before looking back at Angel, concern clear on her face. “That was Leo; they found Phoebe, but apparently there’s some weird skeletal kind of demon after her, she’s _still_ not willing to ditch the tail, and she’s got that interview on top of everything else which we _really_ don’t have time to deal with…”

“In other words, right now they need everyone they can get, huh?” Angel said, looking sympathetically at Paige before he nodded slightly in resolution. “OK, orb me back to the manor and then get back here; I’ll-”

“Hold on a moment there, vamp-boy; Phoebe _needs_ me-” Paige began.

“That kid needs you _now_ ; Phoebe isn’t in any _immediate_ danger,” Angel countered, his expression making it clear that he would accept no argument on this matter. “Paige, you’re needed here; if anything happens back at the manor that means you’re needed, I’ll call for you, but right now it doesn’t sound like they need the Power of Three for anything.”

As much as Paige wanted to protest, she had to admit that Angel had a point; no matter how much she might want to help Phoebe right now, in the end all she could offer at this stage was emotional support and advice, and given his greater understanding of psychology- albeit due to his evil side having used it to torture and kill people back when he was active-, right now Angel would probably have a better chance of making an impact on Phoebe than she would.

“OK,” she said, indicating the door behind her. “C’mon; I’ll just ‘say goodbye’ to you at the door and then get you home.”


	6. The Fall of Necron

As Angel walked into the manor’s living-room- Paige having left him in the main entrance hall before orbing away herself; the better to avoid being tempted to stick around, he guessed-, his eyes immediately fell on Phoebe as she lay on the couch, a long golden tail where her legs should be as Leo dabbed at a wound on her side with a cloth (Either Leo’s inability to heal demons and vampires extended to mermaids or the wound had just been an accident rather than an injury sustained from a demon; Angel didn’t know enough either way to make a judgement right now).

“Angel?” Leo said, looking curiously up at his friend. “What are you doing here?”

“Paige had some stuff going on at work; she sent me here in case you needed anything at this end,” Angel said by way of explanation, before he looked at Phoebe. “Uh… how’s things?”

“Well, if _someone_ would just get me some water and stop freaking out about the demon, I’d be fine,” Phoebe said, looking pointedly at Leo before she looked back up at Angel with a suddenly hopeful expression. “Any chance you could-”

“No,” Angel said, shaking his head briefly- Phoebe must be desperate; with the sun the way it was there was no way he could take her down to the ocean on his own- before he looked back at Leo. “What’s this about a demon?”

“When I found Phoebe at the docks she was under attack from a skeletal-looking demon that seemed to be after her in particular,” Leo explained, looking slightly apologetically at the vampire. “Piper’s checking the Book of Shadows for further information about it, but at the moment we’re stuck for ideas; demons of that type generally aren’t vanquished easily.”

“Look, I don’t need to worry about this demon; I’ll be fine if I can just-” Phoebe began.

“‘Go home’?” Leo finished, looking critically at her. “Phoebe, running from your problems isn’t going to help-”

“I’m not _running_ , I’ve just moved on,” Phoebe countered, looking back at him in a manner that looked like a mixture of serenity with a slight edge of frustration. “All I need are my sea friends and little shiny objects and to lay on a rock and to comb out my hair… I need water.”

“ _Got_ him!” Piper’s voice suddenly yelled out from up the stairs, followed by her hurrying into the room, the Book of Shadows in her hands as she looked over at Phoebe before her eyes settled on the new arrival. “Angel?”

“Paige was busy,” Angel said simply. “You found our bad guy?”

“I think so, anyway,” Piper said, turning the book around so that Phoebe could study the picture. “Is that him?”

“Yeah, that’s him; could I have some water, please?” Phoebe asked, dismissing the picture with a casual wave of her hand.

“‘Necron’,” Leo said, as he leant over to study the Book that his wife currently held in her arms. “‘A skeletal being that hovers between life and death. Has the power to incinerate any living creature and feed on their life energies-’”

“Which at least answers why he’s after Phoebe,” Piper said, nodding slightly at her husband. “If mermaids are immortal and he’s stuck between life and death, then immortality would place him squarely in the life column-”

“Hold on; could you repeat that?” Angel asked, spinning around to look at Piper and Leo, not even bothering to conceal the speculating expression on his face at what he’d just heard.

“Uh… the part about how immortality would put him in the ‘life’ column since he’s stuck between them at the moment?” Piper asked, looking at the vampire for clarification.

“Exactly,” Angel said, nodding thoughtfully at what he’d just heard. “If that’s right, we _might_ just have a way of stopping this guy…”

“Great, I’m really happy for you,” Phoebe said, looking over at Angel in frustration. “Now, will somebody please get me back to the ocean before I suffocate; I _need_ the water!”

“God, we don’t have _time_ for this…” Piper groaned, glancing around at Leo and Angel in frustration. “Angel, get a bath running; Leo, we’ve got a vanquishing potion to figure out, and we need it _fast_.”

“Hold on; a _bath_?” Phoebe yelled, looking in frustration at her sister as the rest of the people in the room left to head for the stairs. “I’m not a _goldfish_ , Angel-”

“And I’m not something that drinks from a cup; sometimes you have to adapt,” Angel said, briefly glancing back at Phoebe with a harsh glare before he continued up the stairs, already wishing he hadn’t said what he’d said.

He hated rubbing his vampire status in the Halliwells’ faces with the memory of Angelus still fresh in their minds- he could still feel Angelus’s smug satisfaction as he assaulted the bound and ‘crippled’ (He couldn’t use his powers; that had counted as ‘crippled’ to Angelus) Leo while interrogating him lurking in the back of his head-, but right now he needed something to make Phoebe be quiet while he ran the bath for her.

Right now, what he needed was a few minutes alone to go over the plan he’d come up with before he explained it to Piper and Leo in case he’d missed something when he was coming up with his theory.

It was risky, he knew, but if it worked out, this ‘Necron’ character would be out of the picture without the Halliwells even needing to _think_ of a spell…

* * *

  
“Are you _crazy_?” Piper said a few minutes later as the three of them stood in the attic, looking sceptically at the vampire before her as Angel finished outlining his plan. “You’re taking a _serious_ risk on a _hunch_ -”

“It might be risky, but Angel’s right; theoretically, that _is_ what would happen if Necron attacked him,” Leo cut in, nodding thoughtfully as he looked at Angel. “Essentially the same thing would happen if Necron went for a Whitelighter, but we’re too obviously good; the energy of our powers would poison Necron before he began to feel any effects from the rest of the process, so he’d never even attempt to drain me in the first place.”

“But since I’m a vampire, I’m _not_ good,” Angel said, looking carefully at Leo for confirmation of what he was saying as he elaborated on his plan. “All Necron will be able to sense is the fact that I’m a demon of some sort…”

“Not what _kind_ of demon you are; vampires aren’t that high on the demonic hierarchy, so there’s nothing particularly distinctive about their ‘aura’- for lack of a better term- to allow Necron to determine what you are that way,” Leo confirmed, nodding. “So long as you only give him the necessary facts to make the conclusion that we want him to reach- assuming he doesn’t try and drain you on his own, of course-, it _should_ work; plenty of demons come into their full powers at the age you were turned…”

Piper sighed.

“Fine; you want to take a gamble, it’s not like I’ve got any _right_ to stop you,” she said, shaking her head in frustration before she turned look pointedly at Angel once more. “Just to make sure, you get yourself killed and break Paige’s heart, I’ll… well, I’ll figure out _some_ way to do something to your ashes to make the whole dying thing even _more_ uncomfortable for you.”

“I understand,” Angel said, nodding briefly back at Piper. “Trust me; I won’t.”

Piper had just opened her mouth to reply when the doorbell rang.

“What the…?” Angel said, looking over at Piper in confusion. “Who’s that?”

“Oh, _great_ …” Piper muttered, glancing briefly at her watch before she looked back at her husband and her sister’s boyfriend. “Phoebe’s interview must be here; it was set up a while back and I just forgot to cancel it with everything else we’ve been dealing with recently. Leo, see what you can do about asking them to arrange another time; just… tell them Phoebe’s sick or something- something short-term while making it clear she’ll be in no shape to talk to _anyone_ at the moment- and ask them to reschedule. I’ll see what I can do about whipping up a potion in case we need it; Angel, just… do whatever you want until we need you.”

“Right,” Leo said, nodding briefly at Piper before he turned to walk out of the attic and down the stairs, Angel following close behind him as the Whitelighter headed for the door. As Leo opened the door in question, Angel tried to conceal just how uncomfortable the sunlight that now appeared before him made him, nodding slightly at the woman standing on the other side with her camera crew.

“Hi,” she said, nodding slightly at Leo and Angel, evidently confused at their presence but otherwise willing to treat it as just another occurrence. “I’m Nancy, of _At Home with Nancy O’Dell_ ; I have an interview scheduled for today with Phoebe Halliwell?”

“Hi,” Leo said, holding out a hand to shake Nancy’s. “Leo Wyatt, Phoebe’s brother-in-law; this is Angel.”

“I’m dating Phoebe’s other sister,” Angel said, cutting Nancy off before she could ask him what he was doing her. “Sorry, but this isn’t really a good time; Phoebe’s… come down with a virus of some kind and she’s been told to remain in bed and rest until she gets better.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Nancy said, looking slightly dejectedly at the two men. “I just had so much I wanted to talk to her about; I mean, her heartfelt love advice recently has just been so… _inspirational_ lately…”

“Hold on; love advice?” Leo asked, looking slightly curiously at Nancy before he remembered the current situation and forced his mind back to the matter at hand. “Sorry, but Phoebe doesn’t talk much about her column when she’s at home; something about preferring to think through her response on her own…”

“Oh, it’s just that her recent advice to lovers has been so heartfelt lately I wondered if there was some specific relationship she was drawing on…” Nancy said, shrugging slightly as she looked curiously at Angel and Leo. “I don’t suppose you could tell me anything about that?”

“Uh… not that we can think of, no,” Leo said, shaking his head slightly as he looked apologetically at Nancy. “We’ll call you back when Phoebe’s feeling better; sorry about the inconvenience.”

“Don’t worry about it; things just… happen sometimes, I suppose,” Nancy said, shrugging in a manner that only Angel could see wasn’t as nonchalant as she wanted to appear to be; evidently she was somewhat frustrated at not being able to have the interview right now. “Tell Phoebe we’ll reschedule; I’ll have her people call my people, OK?”

“OK,” Leo said, nodding back at her in brief, grateful understanding before Nancy turned around and walked away.

As soon as the door was closed behind the TV crew, Angel looked inquiringly at Leo.

“Phoebe’s been writing love advice lately?” he said, the comment only half a question. “Did you know about that?”

“I don’t think she even mentioned it to Piper,” Leo replied, shaking his head as he looked at the vampire. “But… when you think about it… if she’s that focused on love…”

“She could still be in love with Cole and trying to channel her feelings that way,” Angel agreed, nodding slightly at the Whitelighter as he glanced up the stairs where the two sisters were currently waiting. “OK, I’ll let Piper know we have an idea on that front; you need to go and get Cole-”

“Hold on; you want _me_ to get him?” Leo interrupted, looking somewhat sceptically at Angel. “Angel, I understand wanting to give him a chance, but wouldn’t you-?”

“It’d take too long for me to get to Cole’s apartment right now- he mentioned he’s still staying in the Source’s old penthouse; he wanted to be near in case we needed him but distant enough o give Phoebe time to get used to him being back on her own- and I’d be more useful here in case Necron shows up while you’re away; you can get there faster and get him back here before we need to take Phoebe anywhere,” Angel explained, his resolute expression making it clear that he would accept no argument from the other man.

Nodding in resignation, Leo stepped back and orbed away…

Just before Angel heard a strange zapping sound right behind him, prompting him to turn around in time to witness a figure who could only be Neron standing there, with pale blue skin- the blue of death and decay rather than the ‘healthier’ blue of some demons Angel had encountered in his time- and dressed in a loose white shirt and dark trousers, his pale face made even thinner by the scraggy brown hair that hung down around his ears.

“Who are you?” Angel asked, slightly shifting his position as he stared at his foe in preparation for what he was about to attempt; so long as he gave the impression that he wasn’t aware of what Necron was capable of, this idea should pay off well enough.

“Necron,” the demon said simply, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Angel. “I seek the mermaid; where is she?”

“Firstly, she’s not a mermaid, she’s just under a spell,” Angel countered, the ‘you idiot’ hanging in the air even without ever actually being stated. “Secondly, if you want her…”

As he spoke, Angel was already shifting himself into a combat stance, his eyes narrowing as he glared at the powerful demon before him. “You’re going to have to go through _me_ first.”

With that- taking care not to shift into his vampire visage; it might grant him greater strength but it would also give the game away-, Angel leapt at Necron, tackling the older demon to the ground with a powerful blow before leaping back to his feet to kick Necron in the head. Even as the demon staggered back to his feet, Angel was continuing his assault, kicking and punching away at Necron just enough to keep him off-balance without actually doing any long-term damage, smirking slightly at his foe’s continually battered status.

“Come on, can’t you do better than _that_?” he asked, smirking at Necron with a confidence that owed more to his days as Angelus than as Angel (He might be aware of his skills, but he didn’t brag about them as much as Angelus did). “This is _pathetic_ ; I’ve had a harder time with-”

“SHUT UP!” Necron yelled, thrusting out one hand at Angel even as the vampire launched another kick at the demon’s chest, lightning bursting from his fingers to strike the vampire before he could move out of the way.

Even as the pain of the lightning flooded through his system, Angel couldn’t help but allow himself a grin.

 _Jackpot_.

“You would seek to defeat _me_?” Necron roared, his face twisted in rage as he glared at the vampire. “You shall now serve to sustain me until… until…”

His eyes widened in horror as the energy he’d started to take from Angel reached him, his body almost automatically becoming more withered than it had been previously.

“Until… death?” Angel countered, grinning slightly despite the pain as he heard hurried footsteps coming down the stairs; glancing up he sent a brief, reassuring smile in Piper’s direction as she stared in shock at the sight before her. “Sorry… I’m _already_ … dead…”

“No…” Necron whispered, his voice already getting lower as he fell to his knees, his legs too weak to allow him to stay standing. “No… this _can’t_ …”

“It is…” Angel chuckled, allowing some slight traces of Angelus to come through as he looked at the rapidly-decaying demon before him. As he’d guessed, while Necron could draw life energy from an immortal to push himself into the ‘life’ column, by draining a vampire- a being who was already technically deceased, even if he remained physically active-, Necron’s already-fragile hold on life was significantly weakened, pushing him further towards the death he’d spent so much of his time trying to escape.

The best part, of course, was the fact that Angel wouldn’t even feel anything (Nothing serious, anyway; the lightning itself would hurt, but that was about it) from the process; while immortals could be physically killed even if they couldn’t die of natural causes- thus allowing Necron to kill them if he drained their immortality-, as a vampire Angel was already as physically dead as he could get, meaning that Necron had now unintentionally trapped himself into trying to drain a virtual ‘well’ of death ‘energy’ that would never run ‘dry’ as Angel couldn’t get any more physically dead than he already was, the ‘magic’ that allowed the vampire demon to reanimate his body not being suitable for Necron to absorb (Admittedly, that last part had been the real guess in this current fight, but so far it seemed to have worked out).

“No…” Necron gasped, unable to break the lightning connecting him and Angel as he fell to his knees, his appearance now so physically drained that his skin was stretched tightly across his bones. “This… can’t be… _NO_ …!”

“Believe it…” Angel countered, grinning slightly despite the ever-increasing pain as the lightning continued to fight to drain him; it might not actually _kill_ him, but the stuff still hurt for all that. “It’s… happening… _dumbass_ …”

“NNNNOOOooo…!” Necron screamed, before his throat ceased working, his body having aged to the extent where his vocal chords could no longer maintain the necessary volume to express the rage and pain he felt at having been tricked, closely followed by his corpse-like body collapsing into a pile of ash and bone before Angel, the vampire barely having time to register the remains vanishing into nothing before he fell to the ground himself, the lightning that had once held him up now gone.

“Oh my God… _Angel_?” a voice said from up the stairs. Glancing up in the direction of the voice, Angel wasn’t surprised to see Piper standing there, staring anxiously at him. “What _happened_ to you?”

“Just what… we thought; guy… killed himself… trying to… drain me…” Angel grunted as he slowly got back to his feet, wincing slightly as he did so; this kind of thing was _definitely_ not easy on the limbs. “Just… give me… few… minutes…”

“Angel?” another voice said from the door. “Are you OK?”

“Cole?” Angel said, turning around to look at the new arrivals in surprise; Cole and Leo were both standing in the hallway, Leo looking apologetically at Piper while Cole just looked as though he was uncertain he should even be there in the first place.

“What the _hell_?” Piper yelled, raising her hands in the manner that Angel recognised as her stance when she was preparing to blow something up. “What’s _he_ doing here?”

“He’s just here to talk to Phoebe-” Leo began, looking apologetically at his wife as though trying to reinforce that he wasn’t the one who came up with this idea.

“ _Excuse me_?” Piper yelled again (Angel couldn’t stop himself from wincing slightly at that last one; evidently his limbs weren’t the only things that were sore after what Necron had tried to do). “Are you _crazy_? He’s the whole reason Phoebe _left_ -”

“Because she’s trying… to run away from… her _real_ feelings about Cole,” Angel put in, his strength gradually returning to him as he leaned against the nearest wall, looking between the witch and the demon resolutely. “Just… give him a chance…”

After looking between the two former killers for a few moments, Piper sighed and nodded.

“All right,” she said, looking pointedly at Cole. “She’s in the bath; just remember that I’ll be _right_ outside the door if you try anything… _demon_ -y, OK?”

“I won’t,” Cole said simply.

“Just remember what’ll happen if you _do_ ,” Piper said, her arms folded and a grim expression on her face as Cole walked up the stairs, pausing briefly outside the bathroom as though preparing himself before he walked through the door. As Piper walked up the stairs to stand beside the door, a resolute expression on her face as she glared at the door as though prepared to blow it apart the second she had any reason to believe that Cole was doing something he shouldn’t in there, Angel and Leo headed up the stairs to stand close to Piper in case she was needed. For a few moments, there was relative silence, the only sound from inside the bathroom being Cole and Phoebe’s raised voices as the two spoke, until, after a brief silence, followed by another, briefer period of conversation, Cole walked out of the bathroom, looking over at the three people standing outside the door with a solemn expression on his face.

“She’s human,” he said simply.

With that, he turned around and began to walk down the stairs, heading for the door.

“Hold on a minute; ‘she’s human’?” Piper repeated, looking after him incredulously as her one-time brother-in-law headed for the door. “You can’t just walk in and out of here whenever you _want_ , Cole; there’s still the matter-”

Before she could finish that sentence, Cole had walked out of the front door and shimmered away, leaving his three former allies staring silently after him for a moment until the bathroom door opened again, prompting them to turn around to see Phoebe standing in the door looking uncertainly round at her sister, brother-in-law, and Angel.

“Uh… hi,” she said at last, indicating her now-dripping clothes. “Any chance someone could get me something dry to wear?”

* * *

  
A couple of hours later, as Angel sat in his flat sipping a glass of blood, he was only slightly surprised to hear the faint sound of orbing, followed by Paige appearing in the middle of his apartment with an uncertain expression on her face.

“Hey,” she said, nodding slightly at him.

“Something wrong?” Angel asked, turning around to look more directly at her.

“Well, there _is_ the fact that I’m not exactly wild you tried to take out a deranged life-sucking demon with a plan that could have killed _you_ ,” Paige pointed out, holding up a hand to halt Angel as he began to get up. “Piper and Leo already filled me in on the _why_ of it- spells would take too long, you were pretty certain you could survive it, all those little details-, but that doesn’t stop me being at least a _bit_ annoyed about the whole thing, really; I’m pretty sure there’s some rule in the relationship handbook where you’re meant to _tell_ your significant other when you’re doing something crazy and potentially life-threatening.”

“I know,” Angel said, standing up to walk over to stand in front of Paige, looking apologetically at her. “I _was_ planning on telling you what we were planning, but you weren’t there when I came up with the plan and then Necron showed up-”

“So, in the end, the main problem was that I wasn’t there,” Paige said, shaking her head solemnly.

“What?” Angel said, looking at his girlfriend in shock. “Paige, that’s not-”

“I _know_ it’s not, Angel, but that’s not the point,” Paige said, shaking her head as she looked back at her boyfriend. “Ever since I became a witch, I’ve been trying to balance fighting supernatural evil with my work in social services, and it’s reaching the point where I can barely focus on _one_ of them at a time, never mind both…”

She sighed for a moment, looking solemnly out of the window before she looked back at Angel. “So, I’ve decided to quit my job.”

“Quit?” Angel repeated, his previously-shocked expression growing more evident. “Paige, you told me that social work was what you always wanted to do-”

“Because I wanted to help people, which I’m _also_ doing with you and my sisters,” Paige added, looking pointedly at Angel to make sure he understood what she was saying. “I’ve done some great work there, but if I can improve my knowledge of magic, I can actually _save_ lives, rather than just _help_ them…”

She trailed off for a moment, looking at Angel as though seeking his reassurance that he understood what she meant, only for him to walk up and wrap his arms around her, holding her close to him for a moment before he kissed her on the forehead.

“It’s your life,” he said, smiling down at her before his expression became more solemn. “Just to check-”

“Don’t worry; this isn’t _just_ because of you,” Paige replied, smiling reassuringly back at Angel; he’d made it clear long ago that he didn’t want her to start making decisions based on what would help _him_ , rather than what would help _her_. “I just want to make sure I’m the best witch I can be; the fact that it gives me more free time with you is just a… well, it’s a nice little bonus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To whom it may concern, I apologise for not rewriting Cole and Phoebe’s conversation, but it would have been so similar to the original version that I decided to skip it.
> 
> Besides, next chapter things REALLY start to get interesting, as a certain half-demon ally of Angel’s makes his ‘Charmed’ debut…


	7. Doyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we go; the introduction of a VERY particular character from the “Angel” series, combined with the moment when the Charmed Ones must come face-to-face with a VERY interesting demon…

“‘Cause, y’know, when you’re _this_ in love with someone…” Paige said, her voice slurring slightly as she leaned against Angel, the two of them sitting at a bar with two half-full bottles of beer in front of them. “I mean, when you love someone _this_ much, it’s like… like… like _nothing_ …”

“Yeah, she rocked my world… first time… and… and…” Angel began, trailing off with an uncertain expression on his face as he turned to look at Paige, an affectionate smile on his face that was somehow all the more endearing for his drunkenness. “What’s that word I’m lookin’ for here…?”

“Bowled you over?” Paige asked, smiling back at him with a broad grin of her own.

“I don’t bowl,” Angel replied, before he leaned to kiss Paige’s lips, his mouth partly missing its target as his lips met both the right corner of Paige’s mouth and her cheek. “Maybe… maybe it’s… y’know, I _did_ know this one…”

The sound of laughter behind them prompted Angel and Paige to glance backwards, the two swiftly noting that the two couples they’d seen upon arrival apparently finishing their game at the bar snooker table. One of the men was kissing the girl he’d come in with- she’d apparently potted the winning ball-, while the other, having taken a last swig of his beer, was now coming over to the bar.

“We want to cash out,” the man said, leaning past Angel to speak with the bartender in a low voice, shooting a slightly disdainful glance at Angel as the vampire grinned up at him.

“Girls are nice,” the former Scourge of Europe said wistfully, his wistful tone only adding to his currently-intoxicated appearance as he smiled at the other man, apparently unaware of the fact that he had a girl currently lying down on the bar beside him who was looking up at him with an expression of drunken devotion.

Shaking his head slightly at the display before him as he took his change back from the bartender, the man turned around and walked towards the bar’s back door, closely followed by his friend and their current partners.

As the group of four left the bar, Angel and Paige each only needed to exchange brief glances with the other to confirm that they’d already resolved on their next course of action. Pushing their drinks aside, Angel and Paige stood up and walked out after the small group, hanging back a couple of metres to avoid making their presence obvious as Paige slipped a hand inside her jacket to check her stake; she might be improving with her magic ability, but on these outings she preferred to rely on hand-to-hand instead.

Walking through the back door that their targets had left by, neither Paige or Angel were entirely surprised to see that the men from inside the club had already ‘vamped out’ and grabbed the women by the necks in preparation for a more nourishing drink; Angel had sensed the vampires’ presence as soon as he’d passed the bar, and the two of them had spent the subsequent time faking intoxication to put them off-guard.

“Hey,” Paige said, looking around the alley in a slightly dazed manner, apparently unaware of the twisted faces of the men; the presence of a third figure was a bit unexpected- he must have joined them as they left the bar during those crucial few seconds Angel and Paige had waited-, but it was nothing they couldn’t handle. “Did any of you see our car?”

“What?” one of the vampires said, looking in confusion at the seemingly drunk new arrivals.

“Y’know, our _car_ ,” Angel repeated, a slightly amused smile on his face as he looked probingly at the surrounding vampires. “It’s big, it’s long, it’s dark-”

“Piss off, pal,” one of the vampires said, holding his victim off to one side as he glared at Angel, his fangs bared as he looked at the other vampire.

Almost as though he didn’t register the potential danger he was in, Angel walked up to the vampire and looked him directly in the eyes, Paige leaning against a nearby dumpster as she smiled inanely around at the other women.

“Breathmint?” Angel said at last.

Growling, the vampire threw the girl he was holding off to one side as he moved to punch Angel, only for Angel to quickly grab the arm and twist it away from himself before the fist could even make contact. The other vampire momentarily surprised at Angel’s show of strength, Paige took advantage of his distraction to spin around, planting a kick directly in his teeth that sent him staggering back, putting him off-guard just long enough for her to plunge her stake between his heart.

As the third vampire charged towards Angel, evidently recognising him as the greater threat- Paige wasn’t too proud to admit to herself that her victory had been based on surprise rather than strength-, Angel hurled his first opponent off towards the nearby wall, flicking his wrist as he spun around to trigger one of his wrist-mounted stake holders, the stake slipping into his hand as he spun around and planted it in the middle of his would-be adversary’s chest.

As the third vampire fell into a pile of dust, Angel quickly turned to face his original opponent, not surprised when his subsequent punch to its face was accompanied by a simultaneous punch from Paige- she must have come up alongside him while he was momentarily occupied-, the dual blow knocking the vampire down long enough for him to spin his previously-used stake around, crouch down, and plant it in his adversary’s chest.

Standing up as the ashes that had once been a vampire fell to the ground, Angel smiled slightly back at Paige.

“Three-nothing to us,” he said, a slight smile on his face as he looked at her. “Nice work.”

“Thanks,” Paige said, smiling casually back at him before she turned back to look at the girls they’d just rescued; the blonde was bleeding from a cut on her forehead, but otherwise they seemed unharmed. “You two OK?”

“Yeah… fine…” the blonde said, looking shakily between the two figures before her. “Who… who _are_ you?”

“Trust us; it’s easier if you don’t know,” Paige said, indicating the other end of the alley. “Just get home, OK?”

For a moment the girls looked like they were going to ask further questions, but as Paige turned around to rejoin Angel, the two of them subsequently walking off towards the opposite end of the alley without even looking back at the people they’d just saved, they evidently recognised that they wouldn’t get any further answers.

* * *

  
Paige had to admit, they might not be the most conventional ‘dates’, but she was actually rather enjoying her time with Angel these days as they checked out various bars for vamp activity; not only did they give her a chance to spend time with her boyfriend, but they also gave her a chance to work on her ability to fight evil _without_ needing to resort to magic.

In general, her new ‘training schedule’- as she thought of it- was going fairly well; during the day she worked on perfecting a few basic spells based on some of her sisters’ old notes- taking care not to do anything that would actually _help_ her, no matter how indirectly-, while at night she and Angel worked on her physical combat skills by tackling some of the more ‘vamp-heavy’ bars in the city.

It didn’t exactly give Paige much opportunities to talk with other people, of course- even when they didn’t spend time pretending to be drunk Angel wasn’t exactly a people person-, but right now Paige was more focused on improving her ability to protect innocents rather than improving her social life; she could worry about that kind of thing later.

Besides, there were still the dates they went on where _neither_ of them did any training or hunting; the previous night she and Angel had both gone to the cinema and followed it up with a couple of drinks at P3…

Shaking her head to push thoughts like that aside- right now she had more important things to think about than her suddenly-diminished social life-, Paige shrugged off her jacket as she walked into Angel’s flat, walking over to give her boyfriend a brief hug as he shrugged off his shirt and removed his stake-launchers…

“Nice place,” a voice said from behind them, before Angel could turn around to give Paige the kiss that she’d been seeking.

Jumping slightly at the unexpected arrival- Paige freely admitted that she was the only one who actually ‘jumped’; Angel just turned his head to look at the speaker-, Angel and Paige were both surprised to see a thin man, maybe a few inches shorter than Angel, standing casually in the door of Angel’s apartment, dressed in a battered brown leather jacket, a dark red shirt with the upper three buttons undone to reveal a white undershirt, and dark trousers, with short, slightly curly dark hair topping a long pale face.

“Could maybe do with a better view window-wise,” the man continued, as though the vampire and the half-whitelighter weren’t glaring intently at him, his voice displaying an accent that Paige instantly recognised as Irish, “but I’m liking the ‘batcave’ vibe this place has; the dark avenger, always ready and rested to go out into the night, prepared to confront the evil that lurks in the hearts of men…”

“And you are?” Paige asked, stepping back from Angel and looking at the new arrival with only a slight tension in her shoulders as indication of how she felt about him; he didn’t seem a threat, but she was ready to fight if that turned out not to be the case.

“Doyle,” the man replied, shrugging slightly.

“You’re not human,” Angel added, his expression giving no indication how he felt about that as he looked at the new arrival.

“What?” ‘Doyle’ said, looking at Angel with a clearly wounded expression. “I take offence at that! As it happens I’m very much human…”

He paused, raising hand to his nose as he sneezed, prompting his skin to turn green and dark spikes to pop out all over his face, red eyes briefly visible before his face reverted back to its previous appearance.

“…on my mother’s side,” Doyle amended, looking at Angel as though subtly daring him to press the point.

“Hold on…” Angel said, briefly straining his memory as he looked thoughtfully at the man before him, holding out a hand to stop Paige moving towards their visitor, “you’re a… Brachen demon, right?”

“Bingo,” Doyle said, nodding in confirmation at Angel.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Paige asked, glancing over at her boyfriend; she had been checking over the Book of Shadows lately, but Angel remained their general expert for the more physical demons they encountered, as well as a few magical ones that didn’t feature in the Book.

“He’s not Cole’s type of demon, if that’s what you’re asking,” Angel said, looking over at Paige in a reassuring manner. “Brachens are essentially fairly benign by demon standards; there’s a few unpleasant ones, but generally they’re good company and are perfectly happy to mix with humans.”

“What he said,” Doyle confirmed, nodding once again at Angel in thanks before he looked reassuringly at Paige. “I’m the good guy… or at least, I’m not instinctively inclined to be the _bad_ guy if you’d prefer it that way.”

“Right…” Paige said, nodding uncertainly- after spending so long with Angel as the only ‘good’ demon she’d met, it wasn’t exactly easy to put aside her instinctive reaction, but she was prepared to give it a shot at least-, before she regained her original curiosity. “So… what are you doing here?”

“Glad y’asked, m’dear,” Doyle said, smiling slightly at her. “Y’see, I get these visions-”

“Uh, we already _know_ a Seer-” Paige began

“Your sister’s visions just come from the Elders,” Doyle countered, looking over at Paige with a finger raised to emphasise his point. “Mine come from the Powers That Be; they’re a bit… _higher_ than the Elders, shall we say?”

For a moment, Paige wondered why Angel had suddenly stiffened in shock, as though something Doyle had said had sparked a memory that he’d rather not look into in great depth right now, but then he shook it off and waved a hand briefly to indicate to Doyle that he was still listening.

“Anyway,” Doyle said, as he continued to look at the two of them, “these visions o’mine… well, like your part-angel’s sister’s, they focus on people in trouble; it’s just that mine tend to focus on the stuff that’s better handled by a more… physical approach rather than the magic one the Charmed lot use, if y’know what I mean?”

“Hey, I’m getting training-” Paige began.

“Y’still use magic to actually kill the suckers most of the time; these guys I get visions about generally respond better to a hand-on approach on a regular basis, among other details that… well, that we don’t really have time to get into right now, mainly because I don’t always get the distinction between these suckers and your regular foes meself,” Doyle continued, waving a hand dismissively before he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it to Paige. “Latest vision I had featured a bar- one of those terminally stuck-in-the-eighties places- with a strong feeling that somethin’ bad was goin’ to go down and a feeling that you two had to be the ones to check it out.”

“Ah,” Paige said, exchanging a brief, uncertain glance with Angel before she turned back to look at Doyle, only for Angel to voice the question she’d been meaning to ask before she could do it herself.

“Why does it have to be us?” the vampire asked, looking pointedly at Doyle.

“Connections,” Doyle said, his tone partly casual and partly serious. “You need to make ‘em; hitting it off with your squeeze’s family is great and all-”

“Now I’m his _squeeze_?” Paige interjected, her eyes narrowed as she glared at Doyle.

“Figure o’speech,” Doyle said, look apologetically at her before he turned back to Angel. “Point is, you’ve been cuttin’ yourself off from the world even after the better half here gave you a reason to get involved in it again; you need to start doin’ stuff _with_ people if you’re goin’ to get anywhere these days. You might be over two centuries experience-wise, but you’re not really connectin’ to _people_ anymore; you keep this up, and, well…”

He shrugged slightly, the grim expression on his face belying the tone he was speaking in. “Well, there might come the day when you’re on your own, looking at the blood tricklin’ from their injuries, and you just start wonderin’… what would it be like to have that again?”

“I wouldn’t,” Angel replied coldly, Paige clenching and unclenching her fists as she glared at Doyle for what he had just implied.

“Can you swear it?” Doyle asked, looking nonchalantly back at the vampire.

After a moment’s silence, Angel lowered his head slightly, evidently acknowledging Doyle’s point.

“ _That’s_ why I’m here,” Doyle said, nodding slightly at Angel. “Ain’t just about savin’ lives, man; it’s ‘bout savin’ souls. Maybe even encouragin’ you to help out your own in the process.”

For a moment Paige wanted to protest, pointing out to Doyle that Angel had already made a connection with her and her sisters, that he was already connecting with people, that he was _already_ helping them…

In the end, however, she knew that it would be a lie if she did say it.

Angel might be spending less time sitting around his flat brooding- or whatever he did during the daylight hours- these days, but the fact remained that he’d withdrawn ever since he regained his soul again; he hadn’t even bothered to ask Piper about starting over at his old bartending job at P3, never mind getting out socially without her there as well.

If Angel was going to develop as a person, he needed to connect with others, and if these visions of Doyle’s could help him do that…

Paige was right there with him, as far as she was concerned.

“All right, then,” she said, turning to look at Doyle. “Where’s this club, and how long will it take the three of us to get there?”

“Oh, about- wait, _three_ of us ?” Doyle repeated, looking back at Paige in surprise. “Hold on; I’m just the messenger-”

“Exactly; you need to come along to make sure we’re delivering the message correctly,” Angel said, shrugging his shirt and coat back on even as he looked pointedly at Doyle. “These visions of yours, they gave you an address?”

“Well, yeah, but no _faces_ really popped out-” Doyle began.

“You just let us know if you spot something likely; we’ll take it from there,” Angel said, before he glanced over at Paige. “You up to this?”

“A few more hours of late-night demon-hunting after a hard day of nothing but a few spells?” Paige countered, smiling slightly back at her boyfriend. “Just let me make sure Piper and Phoebe know I’ll be late back, and you can count me in.”


	8. Seeking the Connection

A few hours later, Angel, Paige and Doyle were sitting around a table in the bar, the rest of the patrons having departed for the night, with no further information about whatever threat had prompted Doyle’s original vision and more than the occasional ache from where things hadn’t gone according to plan. Asking around for anyone who might have seen someone in trouble was far from a practical means of finding what they were after- Paige had struck up a couple of conversations, but she’d always been forced to back off before things went too far in case she ended up giving the wrong impression by accident-, and subsequent events had only made it more difficult.

“OK,” Paige said, looking around uncertainly at her boyfriend and their new acquaintance- it was too early to consider Doyle a friend- as the rest of the club’s visitors swiftly left the building, “at _what_ point did things go wrong here?”

“Do you mean the part where that guy accused you of being a hooker, or the part where I punched him for the insinuation?” Angel asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced over at her before he looked over at Doyle. “I’m guessing that this isn’t what you had planned when you approached us?”

“Hey, I told you both my info was limited; _you’re_ the ones who insisted on dragging me along!” Doyle pointed out, before he sighed and glanced back at Paige, evidently recognising that complaining to Angel wasn’t going to help anything. “Seriously, did you get _any_ impression that anyone here needed help? I thought your lot had the whole empathy thing going-”

“Firstly, if you’re referring to… my dad’s side of the family… that only applies to specific charges, and even then it’s not anything significant; assuming I had any, I’d only know when they actually _needed_ me while they were in _danger_ , not if they were just suffering from emotional stress or something like that,” Paige countered, looking critically over at Doyle. “Secondly, I’m still working on accessing _that_ part of my powers; I’ve been more focusing on improving what I can use in a fight right now so that I’ll have _time_ to explore the more peaceful side of things-”

“In other words, we have nothing,” Doyle said, groaning as he slumped back into his chair. “Seriously, you’re makin’ me migraine worse…”

“Tell me about it; this socializing thing is _brutal_ these days,” Angel said, looking around the bar with a briefly reflective expression before he looked back at Paige and Doyle. “I mean, not meaning to sound old, but things were never _this_ hard back when I was alive…”

“Hey, you went to _taverns_ ,” Doyle pointed out, a dismissive shrug accompanying his statement. “Back then everyone in those villages knew each other even _before_ you walked in there; made it all a lot easier.”

“Yeah, it’s not like it was back in high school; it was all a lot easier to relate to people _there_ when we all already knew each other,” Paige said, shrugging slightly before she glanced back at Angel with a slightly teasing smile. “Is that one reason you started dating me; to stop yourself from having to deal with that particular problem in the present?”

“Well, maybe a _little_ …” Angel replied, the smile on his face making the joke clear as he leaned over to lightly kiss Paige’s lips, only for a polite cough from the bartender to interrupt them before they could go any further.

“Sorry, folks,” the bartender said, smiling slightly at the (apparently) young couple, “but I’m going to have to kick you out now.”

“Oh… right,” Angel said, standing up and smiling slightly apologetically at the bartender before he glanced back at Doyle and Paige. “Come on, let’s go; we’re not going to find what we’re looking for _this_ way.”

* * *

  
“Well, this is new; looking for weird stuff on the _Internet_ ,” Paige said, shaking her head slightly at the strangeness of it as she sat at her laptop in the manor’s kitchen the next morning, Angel standing behind her as Doyle examined the cupboards for something to drink.

With Piper and Phoebe currently at work, and no current inclination to include them in this latest problem- partly because Paige wanted to tackle something herself for once rather than always relying on her sisters, but mainly because at present they didn’t even know if there was a demon to vanquish; Doyle freely admitted that he didn’t completely understand how his visions worked and recognised that there was a possibility they were dealing with a _human_ here, even if he thought it wasn’t particularly likely-, Paige and Angel had invited Doyle to meet them the next morning to try and figure out what might have been going on at the club to require their presence.

Waiting until her sisters had left for the day- Phoebe needed to go over the letters for her column and Piper had needed to sort out arrangements for the band that had been hired for P3 tonight-, Paige had called Doyle on the number he’d left them to invite him over to the manor to check for some more information on the net; Angel’s apartment still lacked Internet access, but right now Paige wasn’t entirely certain how her sisters would react to knowing that she was working with a _demon_ to help people.

If Paige was honest with herself, she mused reflectively as she tapped away at her keyboard, running through one search engine after another, she wasn’t certain _she_ was comfortable with it either. Doyle might not be the ‘instinctively evil’ type of demon she’d been dealing with for most of the past year- the kind for whom trying to kill people was almost as natural as breathing was to her-, but after spending the better part of a year dealing with demons who were automatically trying to kill her- with the obvious exception of Angel-, it wasn’t exactly easy for Paige to just get over old prejudices _that_ quickly; she’d need a bit more time to become comfortable with Doyle…

“Look at that,” Angel said, breaking into her train of thought as he looked over her shoulder at the information she’d just pulled up on the screen before her; she’d been so caught up in her thoughts she’d almost missed what she was looking at. “‘Search continues for Grace Reilly. Missing since late last month the 26-year-old medical student that vanished after leaving a downtown bar called D’oblique’.”

“Missing girl?” Paige repeated, glancing over the information herself before she looked back at Angel. “Well, at least that’s _some_ evidence that something’s not right about that place…”

“Yeah, and look at this…” Doyle said, indicating another link on the web page. “Badly mutilated body found in the dumpster nearly three weeks ago, described by the coroner’s office as eviscerated, has been positively identified as that of 23-year-old Jake Cramer, last seen with an unidentified female companion at-”

“D’oblique,” Paige said, finishing the sentence before Doyle could do it himself. “Well, OK, but two murders doesn’t exactly equal a trend…”

“Two murders that we _know_ of; maybe there’s more that nobody traced back to the bar yet,” Angel pointed out.

“Point…” Paige muttered, nodding thoughtfully before she looked over at Angel, an idea clearly occurring to her. “Darryl might know something else; shall I check in with him?”

“Good idea,” Angel agreed, nodding briefly at her.

“Hold on; Darryl?” Doyle asked, looking inquiringly between the two.

“Detective Darryl Morris; he gives us a few tips whenever he discovers something at his work that might be supernaturally-related and generally helps cover up our involvement when we get caught up in anything else,” Paige explained. “I can check in with him, see if anything else happened last night around there that we should know about- with emphasis on the ‘evisceration’ thing; that definitely sounds fairly ‘demon-y’ to me- and then get back to you with anything else?”

“Sounds good,” Angel confirmed, nodding at her before he glanced back at Doyle. “In the meantime, we’ll get back to the apartment and check the library; if we can track down a list of eviscerating demons with this type of target we might have a better idea what we’re looking for tonight.”

“Check,” Paige confirmed, nodding briefly at Angel and Doyle as she stood up. “Let’s go.”

* * *

  
Glancing up from his desk as he looked over a few case photos, Darryl wasn’t sure how to feel at the sight of Paige walking towards his desk, a slightly apprehensive expression on her face as she reached her destination.

“Uh… hi,” she said, looking uncomfortably at him.

“Problem?” Darryl asked, looking up at her with a slightly quizzical expression as he indicated a nearby chair.

“ _Maybe_ …” Paige admitted, looking apologetically at Darryl as she pulled the chair over to sit down beside him. “Look, I know this is a bit ‘out of the blue’ even by our standards, but… do you have any unsolved murders centred around the D’Oblique club?”

Darryl blinked.

“D’Oblique?” he repeated, looking at her in surprise.

“Uh… is that a problem?” Paige asked.

“Aside from the fact that we just got a call out about a young man turning up dead and the last place anyone saw him alive being the D’Oblique club last night?” Darryl replied, his expression grim as he looked at her.

“Oh, _crap_ …” Paige groaned, raising a hand to her forehead in frustration before she looked back at him. “The guy was basically eviscerated, right?”

“Hardly anything left inside him,” Darryl confirmed, looking pointedly at her. “What kind of demon are we talking here?”

“Ah… we don’t know yet,” Paige said, wishing she could give her friend better news. “All we’ve got for definite is that it eviscerates people and may prey on singles; Angel’s checking out some stuff with a friend, but… well, you know how it is.” (She just hoped that Darryl didn’t ask what Piper or Phoebe were doing about it; at this time of day they were generally at work, so there was a valid reason for her being the one to ask about the demon at this point, but that might get problematic if he called them for confirmation).

“Right…” Darryl muttered, shaking his head slightly as he looked briefly down at the photos before him. “Well, that definitely fits the pattern we’ve been forming…”

“Pattern?” Paige repeated. “You mean… this has been going on for a while?”

“Last few weeks at least, far as we can tell,” Darryl confirmed, nodding grimly at her. “It just seemed like some serial sicko at first; thought about calling you guys in case there was some kind of ritual being prepared, but after the first few killings didn’t trigger anything from your end I assumed it was just a normal guy.”

“Yeah… trust me, I’m wishing we’d gotten involved before now too…” Paige muttered, looking briefly over the pictures- just because she was dating a vampire didn’t mean she’d developed a taste for blood and guts- before she looked back at her friend. “Uh… don’t suppose you’ve got a picture of the latest victim’s face anywhere?”

“Yeah; guy was IDed from his wallet,” Darryl replied, reaching over to pick up a plastic bag out of a drawer and show it to Paige, who swiftly recognised the contents as a photo ID. “Leo Tyler, small-time legal rep; no connection to the other victims, but-”

“I got it, thanks,” Paige said, standing up sharply as she stared at the card before her. “Thanks for your help, but I’ve got to go; I’ve… well, I just thought of something that _really_ could help if I’m right…”

Without waiting to provide any further explanation, Paige turned and hurried towards the entrance as fast as she could go without actually running, leaving Darryl staring silently after her with more than a slight trace of apprehension.

He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know what had just occurred to Paige when she saw that ID, even as he reflected that he’d probably find out what it was sooner or later…

* * *

  
“You’re sure this is the right place?” Angel asked, looking uncertainly at Paige as the two of them stood outside the apartment later that night. Paige had managed to identify the dead man as someone she’d seen in the club the previous night, but had been unable to find out anything more about who he’d left the bar with until the club had opened, after which she’d managed to track down a few people who knew the victim- fortunately without knowing about his currently-deceased status- and determine that he’d last been seen leaving the bar with a Grace Luttrell, prompting her to call Angel before heading to the apartment of the woman in question.

“Yeah, I checked over the addresses before I called you; there’s a couple of Luttrells or Grace Luttrells in the city, but only one close enough to the club to go there regularly,” Paige said, nodding reassuringly at her boyfriend. “Look, it’s a straightforward enough situation; we just go in there, ask her what happened to-”

Before Paige could finish her sentence, the sound of someone screaming came through the door, accompanied by a sound that neither of them needed their past experience with various forms of demon to know was the sound of tearing flesh. Acting on instinct, Angel broke the door down and the two of them charmed into the room, only realising after they’d entered the flat what the implications were of Angel’s presence.

Since nobody had _invited_ him in, then the original owner must be…

Glancing over at a nearby door, Paige couldn’t help but wince at the sight of the withered corpse of a young woman who she could only assume was Grace, looking she’d been left to decay for a week already rather than the few hours that had passed since she’d left the club, lying in a bed with a large wound in chest.

Before either of them could finish processing what they’d seen, the sound of something slithering drew their attention over to another part of the room, where they were just in time to see some kind of snake-like creature finish crawling into a hole in the back of the other figure in the room- a young man whom neither of them recognised-, the hole swiftly fading to leave no marks as the man finished putting on a shirt and turned to look at the new arrivals.

“You’re not human,” he said simply, his gaze automatically shifting to Angel.

“Unless I _really_ screwed up in biology, you’re not exactly on that evolutionary chart either,” Paige pointed out.

“This has to stop,” Angel added, indicating the body lying off to the side as he looked pointedly at the man before them. “ _You_ have to stop.”

“I will, when I find the right one,” the ‘man’- even knowing that he was possessed, neither Paige or Angel could entirely think of him as the snake-creature that now controlled him when he otherwise appeared so human- said, his tone almost nonchalant. “The one I can stay with?”

“Wait a minute; the ‘right’ body?” Paige repeated, waving a hand at the creature’s current host. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“Nothing…” the creature said, looking at the body with a slightly frustrated glance, “ _yet_. It’s new and different. It’s great… but it won’t last. I already know it’s not the I can live in.”

“Well then,” Angel said, stepping forward slightly even as Paige moved back- each of them knew without needing to say it that this was one fight where Angel would take the initial punishment in this fight to better gauge the strength of their current opponent-, “it’ll have to be the one you die in.”

With that, their opponent took a couple of brief steps towards Angel and the two swiftly began to exchange blows, Paige moving back slightly to get a better view of the fight. Although Angel managed to parry the initial blow, his subsequent strike to his foe’s chest met with little apparent response on his adversary’s part, his opponent grabbing his fist on his next attempted assault and hurling Angel to the ground. Paige jumped into the fray before he could do anything else to Angel, launching a powerful kick to her opponent’s face that sent him staggering- most likely from the surprise rather than from the force- long enough for the now-vamp-faced Angel to get back to his feet and attempt another assault, only to end up pinned to the wall after another punch was blocked. In increasing desperation, Paige grabbed a nearby lamp and hurled it at the head of their current foe, only for him to subsequently turn around and send her flying with a powerful punch. Angel tried to take advantage of the creature’s momentary distraction to launch another blow, but his opponent simply grabbed his arm and sent him hurtling into another corner of the room alongside Paige, the faint sound of vanishing footsteps alerting Angel to their foe’s disappearance even before he looked up for confirmation.

“Damn…” he muttered, winching slightly as he gradually got back to his feet, looking anxiously over at Paige as he returned his face to his human guise. “You OK?”

“I’ll live…” Paige muttered, shaking her head slightly and trying to restrain the slight wince at the pain in the back of her skull as she looked at the now-deserted apartment. “Well… _that_ could have gone a hell of a lot better.”

“Look at this way; we know what we’re up against now,” Angel said, reaching into his pocket and quickly pulling out the cellphone that Paige had insisted he start using; he still sometimes forgot to charge the thing, but with Paige’s occasional prodding he was getting better at using it.

“Doyle,” he said, after waiting patiently for the phone to stop ringing for a few moments, “we’ve fought the creature; it’s a burrower demon, the evisceration apparently taking place as it moves from body to body, most likely after some kind of sex act-”

“Which, can I just say, is _really_ disturbing?” Paige added, unable to stop herself from shuddering slightly at the sight of Grace’s already-excessively-decayed body as it lay in the bed (Barely over a year in the demon-fighting game and she’d already racked up more disturbing images than she wanted, even _without_ taking the fact that her boyfriend was technically dead into account).

“Yeah, that was Paige; we’re both fine,” Angel confirmed as he spoke into the phone, shooting a briefly sympathetic glance at Paige even as he continued speaking. “Look, you need to find anything you can about this thing’s weaknesses; it was amazingly strong when we were fighting, and it’s almost definitely going to be hard to kill.”

After a brief moment of silence as he listened to Doyle’s response, Angel terminated the call and looked back at Paige, a resolute expression on his face.

“Come on,” he said, indicating the door to the apartment. “Let’s get out of here, call the cops about the body, and then get you home.”

“Hold on; get _me_ home?” Paige repeated, stepping back slightly to glare at Angel. “Hey, this is _not_ your birth century, Angel-”

“Paige, you’ve been on the go for almost twenty hours; I _think_ you need to rest if you’re going to be any help helping me deal with this thing later,” Angel cut in, looking pointedly at her as they left the apartment. “Look, I’m not going to try and fight this thing without you- I think it’s pretty clear that I’m not going to be able to stop it on my own-, but at the moment you need to rest if you’re going to be any good to anyone.”

The most annoying part was that Paige knew that Angel had a point; she _had_ been on the go trying to figure out anything they could find about this demon practically since she got up this morning…

“OK, _fine_ ,” she sighed, shaking her head in frustration; she didn’t exactly like leaving the body-jumping demon active, but at the same time she knew that Angel had a point in that they couldn’t keep going after it in their current state. “You and Doyle do the research thing and let me know if you find anything; I’ll… catch up on my sleep, huh?”

Even as the two of them left the apartment, Paige couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when they finally managed to track that sucker down; how were they meant to kill something that could survive a head-to-head fight with a vampire of Angel’s age without even showing a _trace_ of damage?


	9. Origin of the Agency

“Paige?” Piper’s voice said, breaking into her still-dream-addled mind- her new life was _really_ giving her some interesting nightmare material; last night’s dream featured her trying to fight off the facehuggers from the “Alien” series with a crucifix- as Paige blearily opened her eyes to look at her room. “Everything OK in there?”

“Mmm?” Paige muttered, turning over to look at the door of her room to see Piper standing there, tapping her watch as she looked pointedly at her youngest sister. “What is it…?”

“Nearly lunchtime,” Piper replied, raising a critical eyebrow as Paige sat up sharply in shock at this latest news. “Is there something you’d like to tell us, Paige?”

“Uh… like what?” Paige asked, shaking off the thought that Piper might know about her recent independent demon-hunting activity- she and Angel went out vampire-hunting almost every night- as she looked innocently at her sister.

“Well, you and Angel _do_ seem to be spending a lot of time out and about these days- or nights, rather…” Piper clarified, raising an eyebrow slightly as she looked at her sister, her expression giving no definite idea about how she felt about the current topic.

“Wait; you think-?” Paige began, before she shook her head. “OK, look, not that it’s any of your business, but Angel and I are taking things _slowly_ right now, thank you very much!” (She felt a bit embarrassed talking about her sex life like this, but she just wasn’t quite ready to reveal what she and Angel were _really_ doing with their free time right now; by focusing on the idea that she was thinking about _that_ , she drew her sisters’ attention away from asking anything more until they were ready).

“OK, sorry; just checking,” Piper said, holding an apologetic hand as she turned around to leave, before pausing to glance back at her sister. “By the way, Angel called earlier; he told me to tell you that he ‘found what you were looking for’, does that ring any bells?”

“Oh yeah,” Paige said, nodding briefly as she sat up, a cover story already crossing her mind. “We were… looking for the address of this club I’d heard interesting stuff about lately; can’t keep on getting free drinks from you guys, after all.”

“Point,” Piper said, nodding briefly at her sister before she shrugged and turned around. “Well, just be careful, OK; it’s been pretty quiet on the demon front since Cole came back, but that just means we should probably expect _something_ to show up any time now.”

Paige couldn’t help but agree with that last comment; even if this demon was more like Angel’s ‘class’ of bad guy than Cole’s, she was _definitely_ dealing with the consequences of their recent ‘quiet’ phase…

Shaking thoughts like that off to one side as she sat up, Paige reached over to pick up her phone and dialled Angel’s number, smiling slightly as her boyfriend picked the phone up almost immediately; proper use of his cellphone might still elude him, but the phone in his flat continued to be very effective.

“Got your message; what’s up?” she asked, deciding to get the obvious issues out the way at first.

“ _Well, Doyle and I think we’ve identified our demon_ ,” Angel explained, sounding slightly tired himself; Paige wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been up most of the night after they got back to his flat going over the available information. “ _With all the evidence we’ve got, it sounds like it’s called Tahlmer; he’s been around for a long while and can grant his hosts significant strength- at the obvious cost of the previous host falling apart at a rapid rate when he moves on to the next one-, but he seems to have a problem with fire_.”

“So all we need to do is torch his current host, huh?” Paige asked, shrugging nonchalantly. “Seems simple enough- once we get past the sheer strength of the bastard, anyway-; what’s our next move?”

“ _I’ll head back to the bar tonight and try and find anything else about this guy_ ,” Angel began. “ _Maybe we can_ -”

“Correction; _I’ll_ go and find him, _you_ can hang at the back and keep an eye out for a signal from me,” Paige cut in, a plan already forming in her mind.

“ _What_?” Angel said; Paige didn’t even need to see Angel to know that he was now sitting up sharply at this latest suggestion. “ _Paige, what are you_ -?”

“What I’m thinking is that this guy knows that you’re a vampire who wants to take him out but doesn’t know _what_ I am; for all he knows I could just be some girl you dragged along with you for something to snack on if you got tired later,” Paige clarified, briefly wishing that Angel was there so that she could glare at him. “He’ll back off if he sees you hanging around; he sees me, the guy’ll be more relaxed, figuring that I’ll either make an easy hostage or an interesting potential ‘Trojan Horse’; either way, it seems like it’s more likely that he’ll go for me than he would for you.”

For a moment Angel simply remained silent at the other end of the line, before he finally replied.

“ _All right_ ,” he said, his tone resigned even if Paige knew Angel well enough to know that this was far from over as far as Angel was concerned. “ _I’ll see you at D’Oblique tonight with Doyle; we have to find this thing before it goes any further_.”

“Gotcha,” Paige said, about to hang up before a thought occurred to her. “Oh, and give Darryl a call; if we can take this thing out and leave a body we might be able to help him get past some of the ‘freaky-deeky rap’ stuff- his words, not mine- that he’s been forced to cover up for us.”

“ _I’ll do what I can_ ,” Angel confirmed.

With that, Paige terminated the call as she swung her legs around to the side of the bed, standing up and stretching in preparation for the upcoming day.

She just hoped that their ‘plan’- if it could be called that- worked out all right; if they’d scared the demon off by letting him know that someone was aware of his actions they might never find him before he killed again…

* * *

  
Some hours later, as Paige sat in D’Oblique sipping at her latest drink- Angel watching the back entrance while Doyle kept an eye on the front and the bartender having been given a request to let her know if the demon’s current host showed up; best to cover all the angles, after all-, she was beginning to speculate that her theory about the demon was right; with them having alerted it to the fact that somebody was after it, it had now either moved on to new feeding grounds or it had decided to just stay away for the moment.

 _God_ … she muttered, shaking her head as she glanced up at the club ceiling with a smile. _I’m on stakeout_.

She paused.

 _Stakeout_ …

Actually, she rather liked the sound of that; made her sound more like a detective rather than just a witch (The witch thing was cool, of course, but it wasn’t exactly something you could put on a CV; at least ‘detective’ was a profession that got you some respect…)

“Excuse me, ma’am?” the bartender’s voice said, breaking into her train of thought as she turned back to look at him. “That guy you were looking for? I saw him in the alley.”

“The alley?” Paige repeated, looking at the bartender uncertainly; if the guy had been out there, wouldn’t Angel have seen him…?

Then again, they were still learning what this sucker was capable of physically; maybe he’d climbed down the walls to escape being noticed or something freaky like that.

“Show me,” she said as she stood up, leaving her drink on the table; if it turned out to be a false alarm, she’d be back for it soon enough, and if it wasn’t then she wouldn’t need the ‘cover’ any more anyway.

As she stepped out into the alley, it only took a brief glance to confirm that there was nobody there, followed closely by Paige mentally cursing her own stupidity as she realised what had just happened; she’s dealing with a demon that can hijack peoples’ bodies, and she goes outside with a guy who claims he saw the demon’s _previous_ host?

Maybe the problem was that the last host she’d seen was a male and everything they’d read suggested that the demon needed to jump bodies every twenty-four hours before things went wrong; either the demon had jumped two hosts in the day or so since they’d last seen it or the bartender had been gay…

And _why_ was she thinking about this when-?

The sound of movement behind her prompted Paige to duck at the last minute, barely registering the whistle of air as something thick and most likely heavy narrowly missed her head even as she kicked out at whatever had attacked her. The kick sent a sheering jolt of pain up her leg- evidently whatever she was fighting could take far more than she could deliver-, but it gave her enough time to move out of range as she turned around to glare at her opponent.

“Cocky son of a bitch, aren’t you?” she asked, glaring at the thing inhabiting the man before her.

“I have a right to be,” the creature replied, smirking slightly. “Now then, you can make this easy-”

“I pick ‘never’,” Paige countered.

Before the man could stop her, Paige spun around on the ground, grabbed his leg, focused…

And found herself lying on the ground in the alley around the back of the flat, Angel already turning to look at her in surprise (Paige briefly noted Darryl standing just behind Angel, but pushed the issue of his presence aside; Darryl knew how to handle himself and Angel would have almost certainly filled him in on what they were dealing with).

“He’s in the bartender!” Paige yelled, indicating the man she’d orbed up with her.

Angel didn’t hesitate; diving into action, he grabbed a nearby board and struck the bartender in the head, sending him staggering back just as he was moving towards Paige. As Paige scrambled to her feet and hurried over to Darryl, she glanced back at the fight just in time to see the bartender glaring at Angel, a scrap of skin hanging loose from his forehead.

“Guess you’re done with that body,” Angel commented, following his comment up with a rapid punch to the other man’s chest, only for his opponent to recover just in time to grab Angel’s arm as he launched a second punch and pin Angel to the wall.

“Coming apart, aren’t you?” Angel countered, his tone still sounding normal even as the other man tried to twist his arm. “Can’t just hop into a new body _now_ …”

Before the bartender could reply, Angel had slammed his head back into the man’s face, sending his opponent staggering back long enough for Darryl to draw his gun and shoot at him. The bullets barely seemed to register to the creature before them, but it did result in further skin being dislodged as a bullet grazed his temple, the new flap hanging down in front of the creature’s left eye.

“Thanks for the assist; I can take it from here,” Angel said, nodding briefly at Darryl before he grabbed the bartender’s shirt and hurled him over a nearby crate, quickly following up the attack by hurling the ‘possessed’ (Paige generally thought of possession as a spiritual thing, but the term generally worked here too) man into a wall, only for his opponent to lash out with a powerful kick to the chest.

Paige quickly realised that this current strategy wasn’t working; the other guy may be falling apart, but he was clearly still a match for Angel, and they had no guarantee that the death of his body would mean _his_ death…

Then her eyes fell on what looked like an old oil drum with fire coming out of it- judging by the stained clothing around it the drum must have been in use by some of the local homeless before they ran off after the fight started-, and Paige allowed herself a slight smile.

She wasn’t entirely comfortable with ‘summon-orbing’ something the size of a human normally, but with this guy being a demon trying to kill her boyfriend her usual reasons for not wanting to risk it- she was always a bit worried she’d leave something behind- definitely _didn’t_ apply here…

“ _Demon_!” she yelled out, throwing her hands out at the bartender- making sure she was focused on him; she didn’t want her power to ‘misinterpret’ her order and pick up Angel instead-, turning him into the familiar white lights of orbing before hurling him towards the drum, the bartender returning to corporeal form as soon as he hit the drum. The force of the impact knocked both him and the drum over, the oil inside the drum spilling over the man and setting his already-battered body on fire before he could get out of harm’s way. The man was just starting to get to his feet once again, turning to glare at Paige as she stood staring at him, Angel already moving into position to continue the fight, when Darryl fired his gun once again, striking the man in the chest and sending him collapsing to the ground, his body continuing to burn long after the faintly lizard-like screams of the parasite within him had ceased.

After a few moments of silent staring at the rapidly-burning body, Darryl sighed slightly as he glanced over at the other two.

“Well,” he said, shrugging slightly, “at least this one actually left evidence.”

“And at least his last host had a common pattern that could link him to all the victims; a bartender would have had easy access to everyone and could have probably had some kind of motive to trigger everything,” Paige pointed out, only for the slight smile to fade from her face as Angel looked pointedly at her. “Hey, I’m not saying I’m _happy_ the guy’s dead, I’m just saying that at least we’ve got a ready-made non-demon-related cover story for Darryl to give the press.”

“Well, I _suppose_ I could say he’d targeted you as his next victim and he ran into the drum while he was trying to catch you…” Darryl commented, nodding slightly as he turned Paige’s suggestion over in his mind before he glanced over at Angel. “You’d better get out of here; no offence, but the last thing I want to do is try and clear a vampire of a possible murder charge.”

“No offence taken,” Angel replied, nodding back at Darryl before he turned to look at Paige. “I’ll go and get Doyle; see you later, OK?”

“Sure thing,” Paige replied, nodding back at him with a slight smile. “See you at P3 tomorrow.”

Even as Angel walked off, however, a thought was already turning over in her mind that might make their future lives easier…

* * *

  
“So, let me get this straight; you went out after a body-jumping, internal-organ-eating demon by _yourself_?” Piper asked the next night as the Halliwells sat in P3, sipping at their drinks as they stared at Paige, who had just finished recounting the events of the last few days (With the exception of Doyle’ demonic status; as far as Paige was concerned, that was something Doyle would bring up when _he_ was ready to do so, and she had no right to make that decision for him). “Have you _lost_ it?”

“Actually, we did pretty well, all things considered,” Paige countered as she looked over at Phoebe. “Dead demon, no more eviscerations, and we even gave Darryl a body with a possible motive; all in all, a successful resolution.”

“OK, you may have succeeded, but it was still dangerous; why didn’t you call _us_ for help?” Leo asked, looking pointedly at Paige himself. “You and Angel might be good at dealing with vampires, but-”

“Exactly; Angel’s been having some… issues… ever since he went all ‘Angelus-y’ on us- brooding over what he did, things like that-, and I figured that one of the best ways to help him through that is to give him something to handle _himself_ ,” Paige said, pausing for a moment under the gaze of the people around her before she shrugged slightly. “And… OK, I admit; it _was_ kinda nice to deal with something that big without you guys…”

“Paige,” Phoebe said after a brief pause, reaching over to place a hand over her sister’s. “You know we don’t compare you to Prue, right? I mean, if nothing else your taste in boyfriends is _drastically_ different…”

“Yeah, I get that; the ‘handle something myself’ is more of a ‘me catching up with you guys’ thing than a ‘I have to be the new Prue’ thing,” Paige clarified, nodding reassuringly at her sister before she glanced over at the door with a slight smile. “And speaking of my boyfriend, here he comes now.”

Glancing over at the door of the club, Piper, Phoebe and Leo weren’t surprised to see Angel walking into the building; although the presence of Darryl came as a slight surprise- the two men hadn’t really socialised much even _before_ Angel lost his soul, and things were still slightly uncomfortable between them even after Darryl had been assured that Angel wouldn’t go evil again-, the real surprise was the shorter man in the battered brown leather jacket and the equally aged-looking shirt and jeans walking alongside the other two.

“Hi,” Angel said, nodding at the sisters with a slight smile as he indicated the third man. “Sorry we’re late; had to pick up our associate here.”

“Oh yeah… Boyle, right?” Phoebe asked, looking somewhat apologetic even as she spoke, aware that the name she’d just said wasn’t accurate but unable to recall the right one.

“Doyle,” the Irish man corrected casually, his eyes lighting up slightly as he smiled at Phoebe, holding out a hand as he spoke.

“Phoebe,” Phoebe replied, nodding back at him with a slight grin of her own as she shook the offered hand before he sat down. “So, I understand we have a similar power?”

“Well, slightly different sources- you’ve got them from those ‘Elders’ of yours, mine come from a… well, the best I can give you is ‘someone higher’ and leave it at that- but that aside, yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head there,” Doyle replied, smiling back casually at Phoebe. “Any chance we could… compare notes sometime?”

“Share our visionary experiences, huh?” Phoebe asked, smiling back at Doyle. “I’ll keep that in mind…”

“Well then,” Paige said, standing up and looking around at her family, her boyfriend, Doyle and Darryl- probably best to cut _that_ particular conversation off before Doyle did anything to get ahead of himself; even with the knowledge that Doyle wasn’t Cole’s ‘type’ of demon, she didn’t want to be accused of encouraging Phoebe to date _another_ demon before she’d had more time to get to know him as a _person_ first-, “now that everyone’s here, I’d like to take the opportunity to reveal the reason why I asked _everyone_ here in the first place; I had an… idea that I thought might help us out in the future.”

With that, she reached into her pocket, pulled out a small white card, and handed it to Piper, who studied the card in question with a slightly puzzled frown.

“‘Angel Investigations- We Help the Helpless’?” she said, looking in confusion at her half-sister. “What’s this about?”

“Angel’s new detective agency, of course,” Paige smiled at her sister. “What else would it be about?”

Angel blinked.

“You want me to start a detective agency?” he said, looking at her incredulously.

“C’mon, can you honestly say you _didn’t_ enjoy kicking that demon’s ass by yourself… OK, there was a little help from me, but the point still stands, right?” Paige asked, smiling slightly at the vampire before looking back at the rest of the people on the table. “Look, the basic idea’s straightforward enough; we need more income now that I’m not working, Angel needs something to do other than just sit around his apartment brooding, date me and kick demon ass- not that I’m complaining about him being available for dates, of course-, Doyle needs something to do, period- no offence meant, but you don’t really seem to be doing much right now from what you’ve told us-, and if the Jackman thing taught us anything, it’s that we could use a more official excuse to get into crime scenes than ‘We’re psychics’; would he really have paid as much attention to private detectives hanging around crime scenes as he would have paid to a nightclub owner, a self-help columnist and a social worker in the same situation?”

“Point…” Piper admitted, nodding thoughtfully as she studied the card before looking back at Paige. “Still a bit stuck on why you selected _Angel_ for this…”

“Well,” Paige replied, shrugging slightly at the question, “the way I see it, Angel running the agency ensures we don’t risk violating the personal gain thing by using our magic to crack all our cases too quickly, Doyle, Leo and I work as official members of the team to help him do the actual detective part of the job, Darryl’s our resident contact in the police force- every P.I. needs a cop friend, after all-, and we call on Piper and Phoebe if we come across anything that needs actual magic rather than Angel’s more straightforward approach of ‘Hit it ‘till it falls’- which I find _very_ hot, by the way,” she added, looking reassuringly over at Angel before she continued to talk to the rest of her family. “Not only does it give us a bit more authority to get involved in helping some of our innocents than just ‘We think they need help’, but it also gives Darryl a better reason to let us into demon-related crime scenes; we’re private investigators who specialise in the somewhat-strange cases that have been cropping up in San Francisco over the years.”

For a moment there was silence across the table until Darryl broke it.

“Y’know… that could actually work,” he said, taking the card from Piper and studying it for a moment before he glanced back up at Angel. “I could help you sort out the paperwork to get the agency off the ground, drop you a line if I think I’m looking into something demon-related, give you any info if you’re trying to find out some background details about the guys the demons are stalking, stuff like that…”

He shrugged casually. “Besides, Paige has a point; it’d make a lot more sense for me to talk business with a bunch of P.I.s than with the family of my dead partner’s ex, particularly when the ex is _also_ dead.”

“Point…” Piper admitted, looking thoughtfully at the card before she glanced over at Angel. “So… how do you want to do this?”

Angel simply looked back at them for a short while before he spoke.

“I can’t run it from the mansion; the nexus could attract the wrong sort of attention,” he said finally, as he looked around at the rest of the Charmed Ones. “You think the apartment building would work?”

“Yeah, that sounds good…” Piper agreed, nodding thoughtfully as she studied the card. “You run the agency at your building, we help you remodel the upper areas a bit to look a bit more ‘detective-y’, Phoebe maybe runs a few ads in the paper to attract some more conventional customers- word of mouth can always help in that situation and we don’t want to give the impression we’re just using our powers to make money-, we use the cards whenever we get a vision that looks like it could use a more official first contact than our current method of just basically showing up and hoping for the best… what do you say?”

Taking the card from Darryl, Angel studied it reflectively for a moment before he looked back up at Paige, a slight smile on his face.

“When I came here, I wanted to become somebody to help you,” he said as he looked at the half-whitelighter, prompting a brief smile from her at the comment before he continued. “Now that I am that someone… I think I’d like the opportunity to help more people.”

Putting the card down in the centre of the table, Angel looked resolutely over at the rest of the Halliwells and their allies. “If you’re all willing, I’m in.”

“Count me in too,” Doyle added, raising his glass with a slight smile as he looked around at the others. “Been a while since I had somewhere to be; be nice to be able to kick back a bit.”

“Great!” Piper said, smiling warmly at the vampire before she and the rest picked up their drinks. “Here’s to the opening of Angel Investigations!”

“ _Angel Investigations_!” the group said, raising their glasses and clinking them all together before they took another sip.


	10. Grams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify in advance, the structure of the upcoming chapters will alternate between various episodes of “Charmed” and “Angel” depending on which I think would be most interesting to witness with this new casting; first up from the ‘Charmed’ side, we have “Happily Ever After”

As Angel sat in his apartment going over the forms Darryl had provided for him to fill in, he briefly wondered if the agency even needed all this paperwork; surely they could get by without it…

But, as Paige had pointed out more than once, lack of paperwork would have defeated the main point of this whole operation in the first place; giving them a legitimate reason to get involved in demon-related cases without attracting attention from the wrong sort of people.

He was starting to wish Angelus was one of those vampires who made more of an effort to blend in to human society on a more long-term basis (He’d generally just shown up, thrown sufficient money around to avoid attracting attention, and then killed whoever he was after; any houses he possessed were generally claimed from his victims); it might have increased his body count- vampires operating like that tended to do a more effective job of finding victims as people more automatically dismissed known officials as suspected murderers than they dismissed the strange guys who hung around and never precisely told anyone what they did for a living-, but it would have helped him deal with the legal issues before him at the moment…

“How’s things?” a voice said from the door, prompting Angel to glance up as he saw Paige walk into the apartment, a slight smile on her face as she looked at him.

“About what you’d expect,” Angel replied, putting down the pen as he looked back at her. “It’s been a while since I had to fill out anything this complicated, but I’m getting there; it’s more the repetition that’s frustrating…”

“Yeah, after so long just beating up your problems it _would_ be tough to try and do things with a pen…” Paige commented, smiling teasingly at him as she sat down on the other side of the desk. “Where’s Doyle?”

“Out,” Angel said, shrugging slightly apologetically back at her. “He said he had… something to attend to…”

Paige didn’t bother asking for further information on that particular topic; as much as she knew that Angel was trying to connect more with people, she also knew that years of just being by himself- his time as Angelus didn’t count; you couldn’t exactly call spending time with someone while planning to kill them ‘interacting’ with people- didn’t make it easy for him to connect with people like others might. He was doing what he could to get along with Doyle as more than just a new colleague, but he was still trying to overcome _very_ long-term habits; Paige had known going into this situation that she had no right to expect him to change that quickly.

“So… what are you doing here?” he asked, looking curiously at her. It wasn’t that he minded Paige’s presence, but when Paige came over to his apartment in the middle of the day on impulse like this he generally knew that she was here for some reason other than just the pleasure of his company; with neither of them entirely comfortable with starting their relationship over _exactly_ where it had… left off…, it was easier to avoid temptation by spending this kind of time together for no reason.

“Had to get out of the house,” Paige replied, sighing slightly as she leant back in the chair. “Piper’s reading fairy tales to the baby- and I’m not even sure it _has_ ears yet-, I can’t get this protection potion to work, and Phoebe’s freaking out about the divorce while also trying to pressure me to whip up a vanquishing potion to try and take out Cole; as far as Piper goes, I really _don’t_ know how fairy tales are meant to make any kind of positive impression on a kid of ours given the whole ‘helpless-woman, evil-witches’ routine they always seem to have going on, and even if I get where Phoebe’s coming from with the Cole thing it doesn’t change how annoying it can get at times…”

“Get where she’s coming from?” Angel asked, glancing up critically at Paige.

“Look,” Paige said, shaking her head slightly apologetically as she looked back at Angel, “I _get_ that Cole wasn’t exactly completely in control when he did all that stuff as the Source, but you have to give Phoebe a chance to establish her own boundaries as well; after what she went through with Cole-”

“I _get_ that Phoebe needs to set her own pace; I’m just concerned about what this kind of attitude is going to do for _Cole_ ,” Angel countered, looking pointedly at Paige.

Paige blinked.

“Uh… what?” she asked, looking uncertainly at Angel.

“Have you ever thought about what it’s going to do to Cole if you keep on thinking of him as the automatic villain?” Angel asked, putting down his pen as he looked at Paige. “I spent the first few years after getting my soul back trying to be a normal vampire because I didn’t know what else to be, and I didn’t even have a _reason_ for doing that other than habit; what do you think it’s going to do to Cole if you start assuming he’s going to be nothing but a villain simply because of what he is?”

Paige could only sit in silence after that last statement, staring reflectively at Angel, before she nodded resolutely.

“Point…” she said, sighing slightly as she looked at the vampire. “You _really_ have a habit of making me face the ugly side of things, don’t you?”

“I don’t mean to-” Angel began.

“I get that,” Paige said, smiling reassuringly at the vampire before her expression became more solemn once again. “It’s just… well, it’s kinda hard, you know. I _get_ your points about Cole- he’s not really that different from you, he’s just got a bit more potential _oomph_ and… OK, less reason to _not_ start killing people than you do at the moment… but I always _knew_ that Angelus wasn’t you; Cole…”

She sighed once again, shaking her head as she lowered it to look at the floor. “It’s not that clear-cut where he ends and all these freaky demon powers of his begin; I still remember how _I_ felt when that power-broker used me as a dumping ground, and he’s got a lot more power and a serious history of killing people behind him…”

“I know,” Angel said, nodding in understanding at Paige. “I get that it’s not easy for you to see things from Cole’s perspective after everything he did to you; all I ask is that you keep that in mind.”

“I’ll… do what I can in that area,” Paige confirmed, nodding back at him with a slight smile. “Thanks.”

After a momentary pause, the two of them simply smiling softly at each other for a moment, Paige stood up and glanced over at Angel.

“Well, if the paperwork’s all you’ve got going for you at the moment, any chance you could come back to the mansion for a bit?” she asked, smiling at him. “I mean, with Piper still freaking out about the baby and Leo focused on helping _her_ calm down while Phoebe’s at work, I’d like someone there who _isn’t_ concerned with babies or exes…”

Angel smiled back at her.

“Add in helping me sort out some of this paperwork and you’re on,” he said, pulling out a pad of paper and scribbling a quick note for Doyle to explain his absence before standing up to take Paige’s hand. “Let’s go.”

With that, Paige focused, they were briefly surrounded by the familiar feel of orbing…

* * *

  
Then the two of them reappeared in the middle of the mansion entrance hall, just in time to see an older woman in a long red dress with short, curled hair walking out of the solarium.

“Oh, hi,” Paige said, her voice slightly raised as she turned to address the new arrival, a brief glance at Angel reaffirming his assessment of the situation; until they knew who the woman was, their priority was to act normal to escape awkward questions in case she didn’t know about the magic side of things. “Uh… sorry, I’m-”

“Paige,” the woman said, smiling broadly at the younger woman. “You’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”

“And… you are?” Angel asked, looking uncertainly at the woman before them.

“Why, I'm her Grams, of course,” the woman replied, briefly shooting a sharp glare at Angel for interrupting before giving Paige a sudden hug. “Oh, come here…”

As Piper and Leo emerged from the solarium, Angel looked pointedly over at Leo, prompting the Whitelighter to shrug helplessly- evidently he hadn’t been responsible for this latest turn of events, although that still left the issue of who actually _was_ responsible- before a whispered comment from Piper sent him hurrying up the stairs.

“No offence,” Paige said, pulling back slightly from ‘Grams’ as she looked at the older woman, “but… uh… aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Oh, I’m over that,” the older woman said dismissively, waving a hand as though she was just talking about having recovered from the flu before smiling broadly at Paige once again. “ _Look_ at you! I mean, you’re absolutely gorgeous. You have my mother's eyes; oh, she was a real looker, too. I bet you have plenty of boyfriends, right?”

“Uh… just this one, actually,” Paige replied, placing a hand on Angel’s shoulder. “This is Angel; he’s…”

Paige’s voice trailed off at that point, clearly uncertain how to introduce Angel- he still wasn’t officially a detective until the forms had been filled in, but introducing him as a vampire didn’t exactly give the best impression-, but further conversation was cut off by the sound of smashing glass from the solarium, revealing a large figure dressed in what looked like black leather and holding a large axe. Taking advantage of their momentary stunned immobilisation, the figure lashed out with his axe at Piper, cutting her arm and sending her and her grandmother to the ground before he turned to Paige.

Angel didn’t hesitate; shifting into his vampire visage, he grabbed the axe just as the new arrival raised it, following it up by ramming his knee into the other man’s stomach and sending him staggering backwards, simultaneously losing his grip on the axe. Before their foe could regain his balance, Angel had swung the newly-acquired axe, severing the man’s neck in one stroke, the body automatically vanishing in a burst of light.

“O-kaaay…” Paige said, looking uncertainly at Angel as he resumed his human appearance and turned back to look at her. “Not that I’m not grateful for you saving me like that- nice not having to worry about that kind of thing no matter _how_ independent you are-, but… what was _that_?”

“More to the point,” ‘Grams’- Paige still couldn’t quite get used to thinking of the new arrival by that name, but nothing else seemed like something she’d accept at the moment- said, prompting Paige and Angel to turn and see her glaring at Angel, “what are _you_?”

“OK,” Piper said, raising a hand as she got back to her feet- Paige briefly noted that the wound to her arm was already healed-, “to deal with the obvious question first, Angel’s a vampire, but there’s _no_ need to stake him; he was cursed with his soul about a century ago and he’s been trying to cope with the guilt over what he did without it ever since- to say nothing of staking his own _sire_ to save Paige-, and all in all we’re pretty sure he’s on _our_ side…”

“A _vampire_?” ‘Grams’ repeated- Paige wasn’t sure if she was just ignoring the rest of what Piper had said or had been so focused on that part that she hadn’t heard it-, looking pointedly at Angel. “What class of vampire are we talking about?”

“Look, he’s one of the ‘Soulless’- I think that’s what the Book called them anyway- who was cursed _with_ his soul over a century ago and hasn’t killed anyone for the sake of it ever since; as Piper said, he’s on _our side now_ , OK?” Paige asked, returning ‘Grams’s’ stare with one of her own; she was uncomfortable enough about this woman’s sudden appearance in her life, the last thing she wanted was for her to start criticising her boyfriend. “Can we focus on the more immediate matter of what that guy _was_?”

“Yeah, gotcha; to the Book, huh?” Piper said, indicating the stairs up to the attic.

“Fine with me,” ‘Grams’ said, shooting a pointed glare over at Angel- clearly uncertain about what she’d heard about him so far- before she followed her eldest surviving granddaughter up towards the Book, leaving Angel and Paige to exchange uncertain glances before following the others.


	11. The Tales Begin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any scenes with Phoebe and Adam at the charity ball or the Witch in the Keeper’s castle that aren’t shown here just took place the same way they did originally

“So…” Paige said at last, breaking the uncomfortable silence as she looked around at the others- Leo and Piper were currently in the lead, evidently recognising that the other three needed some time to talk-, “since that guy was definitely a demon given what happened to him at the end there, any ideas what kind we’re talking about?”

“Nothing _immediately_ springs to mind,” ‘Grams’ replied briefly, shaking her head in frustration as they began to climb the stairs into the attic. “It’s a bit frustrating, I can tell you; I don’t want a body if it’s going to get chopped up by something so…”

“What?” Angel put in, looking over at ‘Grams’ as she trailed off when they entered the attic, Paige and Leo heading for the Book while Piper went to check out something lying on a sofa.

“Well…” ‘Grams’ admitted, an uncertain look on her face as she glanced back at the vampire. “There _was_ something familiar about him…”

“Like this?” Piper asked, opening the book she’d picked up from the sofa to reveal a large colour picture of a figure that everyone present immediately recognised as the man who’d just attacked them.

As far as Paige was concerned, however, it was the name on the top of the page alongside the picture that really captured her attention…

“ _Snow White_?” she said, looking incredulously at Piper. “We were attacked by the Woodsman from _Snow White_?”

“Well, at least that explains why I knew him…” ‘Grams’ said, before she smiled briefly at Piper. “And you recognised him too?”

“I read fairy tales to my baby,” Piper replied, a slight trace of hope in her voice as she looked almost hopefully at her grandmother, clearly seeking approval. “Just like you read to me.”

“Oh, darling,” ‘Grams’ said, smiling warmly at Piper before the grin faded slightly. “Well, I'm glad you're finally doing _something_ right.”

“Wait…” Paige said, noting the sudden dejection on Piper’s face at that last comment and recognising the need for another topic of conversation, “you're saying a _fairy tale character_ came to life and attacked us? Come _on_ …”

“Well, why not?” ‘Grams’ replied nonchalantly as she looked back over at Paige. “They're real. I mean, at least, they used to be.”

Paige blinked.

“What?” she said uncertainly.

“Oh, Paige,” ‘Grams’ said, shaking her head briefly as she glanced over at the younger witch. “I can see I have lots to teach you, too.”

Unable to stop her brief expression of rage at the implication- she had stopped a plan to awaken a demon that would have unleashed Hell on Earth a couple of months ago, and now this woman just came waltzing in here and started telling her she needed to _improve_?-, Paige stood up and walked over to glare at the older woman.

“Look,” she said, her voice a low tone that would possibly have made Angelus flinch if he’d still been the one in control of the body, “I get that you’re the big bad superwitch here, but I’ve been going up against century-old vampires _hand-to-hand_ and walked away afterwards for the last year or so, even _without_ taking the demons I’ve helped vanquish into account; I may need a bit of work on the spellwork front, but I’m not exactly _useless_ ,you know!”

“I never said you were,” ‘Grams’ began, assuming a conciliatory expression as she looked at Paige. “I just meant-”

“Uh… excuse me?” Piper said, raising an uncertain hand as she looked between her sister and grandmother. “Any chance we could get back to the fairy tale angle of this situation?”

“Well…” Grams said, looking uncertainly over at Angel for a moment before the glare from Paige made it clear that asking the vampire to leave was not an option, “to begin with the obvious, fairy tales are not all fables. Some are recountings of ancient battles between Good and Evil, and they're as much a part of our heritage as anything in the Book of Shadows.”

“Uh… you expect me to believe that there are giant beanstalks and gingerbread houses that actually existed?” Paige asked, looking with renewed scepticism at the older woman.

“You used to think a life like this couldn’t exist either,” Angel pointed out, indicating the Book of Shadows with a brief nod.

“Yeah, OK, fair point, but at least demons generally stay _hidden_ ,” Paige pointed as she looked over at her boyfriend. “I just find it hard to imagine that a giant beanstalk is something that could be dismissed as a story _that_ easily-”

“Hey, you guys?” a voice said from the door to the main house, prompting them to turn around to see Phoebe entering the attic, a pink box in her hands as she looked urgently around at the others. “Was anybody here when this got… _Grams_?”

“In the flesh… so to speak,” Grams replied, smiling at her before walking over to hug her granddaughter, a broad smile on her face as Phoebe placed the box on the couch near Piper before meeting her grandmother’s embrace with her own. “Oh, it’s so good to see you…”

“Wait; what did I just hug?” Phoebe asked, stepping back to look at her grandmother in confusion. “Where’d you get the body from?”

“Oh, it’s a long story,” Piper put in, walking up to stand between her grandmother and sister, “and speaking of stories, a fairy tale just tried to slice our heads off.”

“A fairy tale?” Phoebe repeated in confusion.

“The woodsman from _Snow White_ ,” Leo clarified.

“OK…” Phoebe said, before she turned around to pick up the box and open it, displaying its contents to the others. “Well, that would explain where _these_ came from. Glass slippers. Cinderella’s, no doubt; Cole knows it’s-”

“OK, I’ve got to stop you there; you think that _Cole_ is behind this?” Angel cut in, looking at Paige with a pointed glare. “With all the power he’s got available to him, why would he need to take control of fairy tale magic in order to attack you?”

“Plus, there _is_ the fact that it was an evil Witch who sent the Woodsman in _Snow White_ ,” Grams pointed out, even as the slight distaste on her face made it clear that she wasn’t entirely comfortable at the thought that she was agreeing with a vampire about something.

“I think I’d better go check with the Elders,” Leo said.

“I think you better,” Piper confirmed, nodding at Leo before she turned to look at Angel as her husband orbed out. “You’d better call Doyle; if someone’s going after us, best we get everyone here soon.”

“Doyle?” Grams repeated.

“Angel’s personal seer; the guy has visions of people in trouble- apparently from a different ‘source’ than Phoebe’s; he still hasn’t fully cleared up the ‘how’ of it-, and Angel deals with them,” Paige said by way of clarification, before she glanced over and noticed that Phoebe was taking off her shoes. “Uh… what are you doing?”

“Proving that I’m right,” Phoebe replied, putting her shoes aside as she reached for the box.

“And what if you’re wrong?” Paige asked pointedly.

“Look, I know that Cole wouldn’t hurt me… _physically_ ; all we need to do-” Phoebe began to say as she removed the shoes from the box.

“Look,” Paige said, looking at her sister with barely-concealed frustration, “firstly, as Angel pointed out to me earlier, automatically assuming Cole’s going to be the bad guy is just going to encourage him to _be_ the bad guy, and secondly, we don't have _any_ evidence that it's him behind this-”

“All the more reason to play along and find out who is,” Grams put in, shrugging briefly at Paige. “We can’t just sit around here and wait to be attacked-”

“Speaking as a guy who used to _set_ traps, sometimes they’re easy to walk into because the guy who set them up _wants_ people to go into them,” Angel interjected, shooting a brief glare over at Grams before he turned back to look at Piper. “Seriously, you _can’t_ agree with this-”

“Uh… actually…” Piper said, a hesitant tone in her voice as her eyes flicked briefly over to her grandmother before she looked back at Angel and shrugged. “If Grams thinks it’s a good idea, who am I to argue?”

Angel and Paige barely had time to exchange frustrated glances with each other at Piper’s almost automatic acquiescence to Grams’s suggestion, but Phoebe’s voice drew their minds onto another issue as she stood up, the glass slippers now on her feet as she smiled over at them.

“See?” she said casually. “No problem; I’m fine.”

No sooner had the words passed her lips than the glass slippers began to glow, a white swirl of light spreading from them to surround Phoebe, fading away to leave her in a sleeveless, shoulderless white evening dress- although the ‘bare midriff’ part of the design was a bit of a surprise-, complete with a hairstyle and make-up to match the style of the main outfit.

“Actually…” Phoebe muttered, taking in her new appearance as the rest of the attic’s current occupiers stared at her in shock, “I’m… _better_ than fine.”

As though those words had been a cue, Phoebe’s left foot suddenly rose upwards as though it had a mind of its own, her lower body simultaneously turning to head towards the attic door.

“Where are you going?” Piper yelled, she and Paige hurrying over to Phoebe as she walked towards the door.

“I-don’t-know; I-can’t- _stop_!” Phoebe grunted in frustration, her legs continuing to make exaggerated steps towards the door even as her sisters grabbed her arms.

“Look, just try and stay _still_ ,” Paige practically hissed, glancing back at Angel and Grams. “Any chance one of you could get these off, or would _that_ hurt Phoebe?”

“With what the Ugly Sisters had to do to get those shoes _on_ in the original story, I wouldn’t put it past whoever’s behind this to make them equally difficult to take off,” Grams said, shaking her head apologetically even as Phoebe continued to yell in frustration. “Look, we’d better just let her go; we’ll never get to the bottom of this if you _don’t_.”

For a moment, as Piper and Paige exchanged grim glances, Angel had a feeling that it would take more than Grams’s word to make them let go of Phoebe, but when her glass slippers continued to show no signs of stopping their attempts at forward motion, they finally gave up and allowed her to continue walking.

“Paige,” Grams said, nodding briefly at the Whitelighter hybrid, “follow her; orb her out if she gets in trouble.”

“More than she is already?” Paige asked, before she shook her head in frustration and walked over to give Angel a brief kiss. “Keep an eye on things here; I’ll be back when I can, OK?”

“Always,” Angel replied, a soft smile on his own face as Paige left the attic to hurry after Phoebe, leaving Grams to look over apologetically at Piper.

“I’m going to have to help you get ready to be a mother later,” she said, before she shifted her gaze to Angel. “And we _are_ going to talk about your relationship with Paige later; right now we’ve got evil witches to deal with.”

“OK, firstly, my relationship with Paige is _none_ of your business-” Angel began.

“Can we focus, please?” Piper said, holding up her hands as she looked between her grandmother and her vampire ally before she began to walk towards the book.

“Oh, not that book, dear,” Grams said, picking up the Book of Fairy Tales and holding it out to Piper. “This one.”

Angel sighed slightly; he had a strong feeling that the current situation wasn’t going to reach a point where he had something to contribute any time soon…

“I’ll just… head down and wait for Paige, OK?” he said, indicating the attic door before he turned and walked out, leaving Grams looking after him with an expression of distinct discomfort before she looked back at Piper.

“And on the topic of evil, _how_ could you allow Paige to start dating… _that_?” she asked, looking pointedly at her eldest surviving granddaughter as she waved a ahnd at the door. “After what he’s done…”

“OK, we’re all fully aware that Angel has a less-than-pleasant past; we’re just not _defining_ him by it,” Piper countered, folding her arms as she stared her grandmother down. “I get that Cole didn’t set a good precedent for this sort of thing, but Angel and Cole are two _really_ different cases; Angel didn’t _have_ his soul when he killed people, and he’s done a _hell_ of a lot to make up for that since he got it back-”

“His need to kill is how he even stays _alive_ ; do you _really_ think that he’s going to be able to give up blood like that?” Grams asked, looking over at Piper critically.

“He did it for the better part of a century _before_ he met us-” Piper countered.

“And how much time do you think he spent _with_ people during that century?” Grams retorted, the two Halliwell witches staring grimly at each other. “You’re basically putting a wolf in with the sheep; how long until he reaches the point where he _has_ to bite?”

Further conversation on that topic was cut off when Leo reappeared in the attic, looking apologetically at the two women.

“Things are worse than we thought,” he said as he looked between his wife and grandmother-in-law.

“How much more worse are we talking here?” Piper asked, already fully aware that she wasn’t going to like the answer but needing something to distract her from the central issue of Grams’s low opinion of the vampire she was already growing to like.

* * *

  
“Hold on, give me a minute here; you’re telling me that whoever we’re up against could rewrite the _world’s_ _fairy tales_?” Paige repeated; her attempt to keep an eye on Phoebe having met with failure when a carriage arrived to take her to whatever ball the slippers wanted to take her to, she’d returned to the manor- encountering Angel waiting for her in the main hall- before going upstairs only to learn about the latest twists in their latest crisis. “How’s that even possible; they’re already in _print_ , in case you hadn’t noticed!”

“Yeah, but every copy is a manifestation of an original,” Leo explained, looking grimly around at his family. “An original that was entrusted to the Keeper of the fairy tales long ago for protection.”

“The Elders apparently think that something happened to him that allowed somebody to take over from the inside,” Piper continued.

“An Evil Witch, I might add,” Grams put in, raising a finger to emphasise her point.

“And the reason we can’t just go to the fortress is…?” Angel asked.

“Nobody knows where it is,” Leo said. “Its location has been kept secret, even from the Elders.”

“Great…” Angel groaned, shaking his head as he stared upwards. “Y’know, this is why I never bothered with magic before I met you guys; even back when I was evil, it just made everything so much more… _complicated_ …”

“I hardly think it’s going to be _that_ difficult,” Grams said, looking over at Angel with a brief glare before she looked back at Piper. “After all, we’re looking for a _witch_ , remember? All you have to do is scry for her.”

“Oh… right,” Piper said, clearly embarrassed at her mistake as she turned around to gather the necessary scrying materials together.

“Then,” Grams continued- this woman was _really_ starting to get on Paige’s nerves; it was like they couldn’t do _anything_ right as far as she was concerned-, “after you find her, you lure her back here to us and we vanquish her with the potion.”

“What potion?” Paige asked, looking at Grams as she tried to work out where a potion had been mentioned before now.”

“Oh, one that works _wonders_ on evil witches,” Grams said nonchalantly. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

For a moment, Grams turned to head towards the attic door, only to pause when she noted that Paige wasn’t actually following her, prompting her to turn around and head for the Book of Shadows.

“Uh… we could also work on your Protection Potion if we have time,” she said, holding the Book out to Paige in an obvious attempt at a peace offering. For a moment that nobody missed, Paige hesitated, but finally she smiled and nodded at the older woman before taking the Book and heading out of the attic, Grams just behind her.

Glancing back briefly at Piper and Leo- Piper sitting over a map with a scrying crystal in her hand and Leo just looking at her with concern evident on his face-, Angel inwardly shrugged and turned to follow Paige and her grandmother.

He might not be able to do much to help out either Halliwell at this point in his usual manner, but at least with Paige he could offer some moral support; Piper seemed to be allowing her grandmother _far_ too much say in this situation for his liking…

It was almost the opposite of the way he’d been back when he was alive, really; while he’d practically gone out of his way to _disappoint_ his father’s expectations of him, Piper seemed to be trying too hard to conform to what her grandmother wanted of her…

Just as he was heading down the stairs, however, everything suddenly seemed to _blur_ around him…

* * *

  
And then he was standing in what looked like a medieval fortress, facing a woman dressed in a black top over a reddish-brown dress, with pulled-back shoulder-length strawberry-blonde hair and a cruel smirk on her face as she looked at him.

“What the…?” Angel muttered, before the identity of the woman before him suddenly became obvious. “Aw, _crap_ …”

“Quite,” the Witch said, smiling at him as she raised her hand. “After all, what is Beauty… without her Beast?”

Angel’s eyes widened in horror at the implications of that statement.

“NO!” he yelled, lunging towards the Witch before him, only for her to suddenly flick her hands and send him flying backwards, a sudden burst of energy throughout his body triggering a transformation that felt like an exaggerated version of his usual shift into what Paige termed his ‘vamp face’… thought suddenly fading from him…

* * *

  
Staring silently at her newly-introduced grandmother as she prepared the necessary ingredients for the vanquishing potion, Paige couldn’t help but be impressed at the older woman’s- or should that be dead woman; she _did_ have a specific death date, after all- skill at this kind of thing; she was preparing all the ingredients perfectly and so far she hadn’t consulted the Book even once…

It was just a pity that she didn’t agree with the old woman more on a _personal_ level; her attitude towards Angel alone _definitely_ cost her points as far as Paige was concerned. She wasn’t saying that Angel was perfect- his original self-loathing attitude after regaining his soul wasn’t the most positive response he could have displayed, after all-, but he’d come a long way since then; being a vampire didn’t automatically make him a bad person, any more than this woman being her biological relative automatically made her Paige’s grandmother…

As her thoughts drifted, her eyes suddenly fell on a beautiful red rose lying near the fruitbowl, its petals a surprisingly deep shade of red that was almost the colour of blood. It wasn’t particularly noticeable unless you were looking right at it, but once your eyes first fixed on it there was something really captivating about it…

“OW!” Paige yelled, clutching her suddenly-sore thumb, only realising after she spoke that she’d picked the rose up during her thoughts and had subsequently pricked her thumb.

“Paige?” ‘Grams’ said as she turned to look at her, Paige glancing up and moving to show her the rose…

Everything suddenly _blurred_ around her…

* * *

  
As she hit the floor of what seemed to be an elaborate castle of some sort, Paige grimaced at the pain from the impact even as she struggled to her feet; she might have been close enough to the ground for the fall to avoid breaking anything, but she still felt uncomfortably stiff-

The sound of a low growling cut off further thought about her current physical condition; if that sound was any indication, right now Paige had more important things to worry about than her health.

Looking up at the source of the growling, Paige’s heart almost skipped a beat in horror at the creature now facing her. Standing at the other end of the corridor she was now in was a tall, humanoid demon with green scale-like skin and vivid red eyes. Its head was almost bald apart from some scraggy hair on the back of its head, and its face was surrounded by small, sharp bones- the ones around its jaw arranged in an almost beard-like manner-, with large pointed ears and equally sharp teeth…

Then Paige recognised the leather duster and black shirt the thing was wearing, and she was almost certain she was about to have a heart attack.

“A… _Angel_?” she whispered in horror, as she stared at the creature that she was now certain was a transformed version of the man she loved.

 _Guess I know which tale_ I’ve _got…_ she reflected to herself with the part of her mind that wasn’t screaming in terror as the creature that had to be Angel charged towards her; based on the rose and what had happened to Angel, if this wasn’t some twisted take on _Beauty and the Beast_ she’d be _very_ surprised… 


	12. Taming the Beast Without

As the 'AngelBeast'- for lack of a better term to describe this thing, calling it that after its status as the beast version of Angel seemed like her best bet- charged towards her, Paige barely stopped to think; acting on instinct- human rather than Whitelighter; the last thing she wanted was to wear out her magic by trying to evade this thing by orbing, particularly since she doubted that whoever was behind this would make it that easy for her to escape-, she ducked to the side as the creature raced past her, launching a quick kick to the back of the 'AngelBeast's' head to try and disorientate it.

The blow itself didn't seem to do much damage, with the creature swiftly regaining its balance and turning around to face her once again, but it at least gave Paige some idea of what it was capable of in a fight.

The AngelBeast might be displaying a lower level of combat intelligence than Angel might have demonstrated normally, but it was definitely more durable than Angel was; Angel would have normally shown _some_ reaction to that kind of attack if he'd taken a kick like that in his usual form.

It wasn't the most comforting thought Paige had ever had, of course, but she'd learned long ago that when engaging in a fight with any kind of enemy, it was important to get an idea of its strengths before you started trying to identify their weaknesses.

"Look, Angel," she began, deciding that the most direct approach was probably her best chance at this point, "this is _me_ , OK; I _know_ you don't want to do this-"

The AngelBeast's subsequent lunge towards her- Paige this time evading him by ducking and rolling under his leap; he seemed to be fairly direct in his attacks so far, which at least left the possibility of outsmarting him open- made it clear to Paige that this wasn't going to be as simple as she'd hoped; evidently the witch had regressed Angel to a feral mentality rather than just making him _look_ unpleasant.

Paige knew that Angel _had_ to still be in there, of course; the problem was figuring out how to get him _out_ before he killed her...

* * *

  
Piper couldn't believe how rapidly things were escalating out of control; she'd started this day with her only major priority being to figure out how to be a good mother to her unborn child, and now she was trying to figure out how to stop her sisters from being killed when she had no way of knowing where or what Paige was dealing with at the moment, and _her_ only clue was a red cloak that made it pretty clear she was meant to play the part of Little Red Riding Hood with no idea where the wolf was or when it might be showing up...

"OK, first things first; what tale features a _rose_ in a prominent role?" she asked- she'd worry about her tale when the time came to worry about it; the lack of a wolf to eat her right now at least suggested she wasn't in any immediate danger-, holding up the rose while taking care not to prick herself on the thorns; the last thing they needed was for whatever had happened to Paige to happen to her.

"Well..." Leo said, looking at Piper with that uncomfortable expression he always assumed when he was about to say something she wouldn't like, "the obvious option is... _Beauty and the Beast_."

Piper blinked, taking a brief moment to think over Leo's theory to confirm it- the Disney movie _did_ feature the Beast's curse being 'linked' to that rose in his tower, although she vaguely recalled that the original tale simply featured the girl's father taking a rose from the Beast's garden to give to her- before she allowed the horror at the implications of that statement to settle in.

"Oh, _crap_..." she muttered (She'd need to remember to start working on editing her language now that she was going to be a mother; just because the kid was too young to hear at the moment didn't mean that would stay the case forever). "I mean, no offence to Angel, but he's already a bit feral when he's all vamped-out on us; stick him in something like _that_ situation..."

"Yes, it's definitely a dangerous tale for him," Grams said, pausing from apparently adjusting her hair- the slight shift of her hand suggested that something else had been occupying her attention before Piper looked, but now wasn't the time to wonder about that- to look at her granddaughter and grandson-in-law. "Still, that's what happens when you bring vampires in-"

"OK, can you _lay off_ the whole 'he's a vampire' thing already?" Piper said, as she glared in frustration at her grandmother. "We've got enough problems-!"

The sudden sound of someone running towards them prompted Piper to cut off her earlier comments as she spun around to face the door, her hands raised in preparation to launch an attack, only to lower them when Doyle charged into the room, panting and looking anxiously around at the others.

"Where's Paige?" he asked, before his eyes settled in confusion on the old woman. "And who're _you_?"

"OK, introductions; Doyle, this is our grandmother, and Grams, this is Doyle, a seer who's helping Angel set up his detective agency," Piper said briefly, waving her hand briefly before she turned back to Doyle. "And to answer _your_ question, Paige and Angel have apparently been abducted by some loopy witch to re-enact her take on _Beauty and the Beast_ so that she can corrupt all fairy tales-"

"Hold on; _Angel's_ with her?" Doyle said, looking at Piper with renewed panic in his eyes. "Relivin' _Beauty an' the Beast_?!"

"Uh... yeah, I just said that," Piper said, growing increasingly uneasy at the anxiety on Doyle's face; she might not know the guy that well yet, but so far he hadn't given the impression that he panicked to this extent that easily. "Is that a problem?"

"It is if the big green horned thing I saw Paige going up against is _Angel_ , yeah," Doyle replied, looking anxiously at Piper. "Witch musta... brought out his inner demon or something like that-"

"His what?" Piper repeated, waving a hand to try and prompt Doyle to slow down. "Look, I've _seen_ Angel when he's Angelus, and he really didn't look that different; he _acted_ a bit more psycho, but-"

"Even Angelus still has some kind of humanity in him," Leo put in, looking over at Piper, a slightly apprehensive expression making it clear that he didn't like the implications of what he was about to say. "But the vampire demon that makes Angel's class of vampire what they are... the pure demon that can only exist in a diluted form in our dimension in the form of the magic that keeps Angel's body active..."

" _That's_ what I saw?" Doyle asked. "What the vampire _really_ looks like?"

"Probably," Leo replied with an uncertain nod. "It's not like it's a certainty, of course- nobody's ever actually seen what one of those demons would look like if it was allowed to manifest on our plane of existence like that-, but it's as good a guess as any."

"Ah, crap..." Doyle muttered, sighing slightly as he took a deep breath to try and steady himself, fingers briefly rubbing against his temples to try and relieve his ever-mounting headache.

"Look," Leo said, trying to look reassuring as he glanced over at Piper, "I'll head over and update Phoebe on the situation; maybe another point of view could help."

A brief exchange of nods was all Leo needed to know that it was all right as he orbed away, leaving Doyle, Piper and Grams alone in the attic.

"So," Piper said, turning to look at her grandmother with a slightly apprehensive expression, "I don't suppose you've finished that vanquishing potion you mentioned earlier?"

"Uh... no, unfortunately," Grams replied, picking up the pot she'd been using to brew the potion earlier and tipping it down the sink with an apologetic shrug. "Bad batch; you know how it-"

"Hold on a minute..." Doyle muttered, a suddenly suspicious look on his face as he stared with renewed intensity at Grams. "What the...?"

"Is something wrong?" Grams asked, looking at him with a pointed glare.

"Uh... no offence, Mrs Halliwell, but... are you... feelin' OK?" Doyle asked, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck as he tried to avoid looking directly at her while still addressing her. "Just... well, I'm gettin' some... odd vibes..."

"OK, look, she's temporarily come back from the afterlife to help us deal with a few issues; can you just-?" Piper began.

"That's not it..." Doyle muttered, almost appearing to sniff slightly as he studied the older woman, a suspicious expression spreading across his face. "There's somethin' else... somethin'..."

Before Doyle could finish his sentence, Grams had raised one hand and struck him with a powerful back-handed blow, sending him staggering backwards as she turned to look at Piper with a low growl.

"So much for biding my time," she said grimly, before her mouth spread out into a sadistic grin that Piper had never seen on her grandmother's face before. "Still, it's been a while since I last had _anything_ that I was so sure was going to taste this good..."

"Oh God..." Piper whispered, her eyes widening in horror as the woman she'd believed to be her grandmother suddenly began to _change_....

* * *

  
"Angel, _snap out of it_!" Paige yelled as she ducked around another attack from her temporarily-transformed boyfriend, unsure whether to be more frustrated at her opponent's sheer ferocity or her own lack of weapons; a decent dagger or something from Angel's collection might be able to hold him back more effectively than her current strategy of dodging and ducking, but a more rational opponent might have been convinced to slow down if she could talk to him...

If there'd ever been a time that she wished she possessed Piper's power, this was it; if she could just freeze Angel's body while leaving his head mobile enough to _listen_ to her-

Paige could have almost hit herself as the solution to their current dilemma hit her; she'd been so focused on just trying to avoid this guy that the _obvious_ means of slowing him down had never occurred to her. Ducking under his latest attack, Paige quickly hurried over to the nearest corner she could find- she might be in a sealed corridor, but it at least included a couple of side-corridors, even if they led to sealed door- before turning around to stare at the AngelBeast, praying that her on-the-fly strategy would work...

After a few moments of sniffing, the creature- Paige was finding it increasingly difficult to think of the thing before her as Angel; it was basically just Angel with everything that made him _him_ taken out- turned around to charge towards her, its claws bared and its mouth open in a feral roar...

At almost the last minute- with enough distance between her and the AngelBeast for her to try something different if this didn't work-, Paige closed her eyes, focused, _willed_ herself to orb...

....And subsequently found herself standing over the dazed form of the AngelBeast as it lay on the ground, clutching its wounded head as it glared up at her, faint traces of what looked like burns on its 'scales'.

Just as Paige had hoped, while the Witch had put charms on the corridor to prevent Paige from simply orbing out, it hadn't been enough to stop her from at least _attempting_ to orb, causing the AngelBeast to run into the wall behind her while she was mid-orb, the holiness of the orbs having also caused the creature slight burns.

"Angel, come on, _snap out of this_!" Paige yelled, crouching down to glare at the creature that her boyfriend had become while it was still too dazed to strike at her. "This isn't _you_ ; you're _not_ a monster, remember? You're _Angel_ , remember? _Angel_."

Crouching down beside her boyfriend- and hoping he wouldn't take her current attitude too personally if he remembered any of this when he returned to normal; she was talking to him like a _pet_ rather than a sentient being-, Paige placed a tender hand on the AngelBeast's cheek, trying to focus on his eyes and the Angel within him rather than the demon that was currently showing on the outside.

"You're _not_ the beast, Angel," she said, praying desperately that her current strategy would work; she wasn't sure how much long she could last against this creature on her own if she had to keep fighting him for much longer. "You're _Angel_ , remember? You're _Angel_... I love you... come back to me..."

For a moment there was no response from the AngelBeast, the monstrous form that Angel had become simply staring silently back at Paige with an almost quizzical expression, as though trying to place a face that it had long forgotten about, before it finally looked directly at her with an expression that- despite the creature's demonic appearance- looked almost like a small child trying to recognise a face.

"That's it, Angel..." Paige said, reaching out to slowly take his hand and help him back to his feet, keeping her voice low and soothing as she spoke to him, even as she studied the door before her in preparation for the next stage of her plan; orbing out definitely wasn't an option after the effort she'd needed just to orb in the first place, but a more _physical_ approach could do the trick...

* * *

  
"Why won't you answer my question?" the Witch asked, looking in ever-increasing frustration at the apprentice in the mirror; how was it she could go to this much effort to get what she wanted and _still_ not get the mirror working the right way? "Why won't you tell me what I want to hear?"

" _You know as well as I that I cannot tell a lie_ ," the apprentice-mirror replied, his calm expression only further aggravating her; she had done everything she could think of, but the fact remained that he could only tell her that she'd failed if she _had_ failed.

" _Damn_ it..." she muttered, turning away from the mirror in frustration, only for her train of thought to be cut off by a loud roar from the door behind her. Turning to face the source of the roar, her eyes widened in fear at the sight before her; the monstrous Beast that the vampire had become, glaring at her with evident hatred in its eyes, claws and fanged bared, the youngest witch standing behind it with a slight smirk on her face.

"Tell me about it," the youngest of the three retorted, staring at her with a cold smile. "Things never _quite_ go the way you want them to, do they?"

" _What_?" the Witch yelled, staring incredulously at the two figures before her. "How can you still be _alive_?"

"Funny thing about cursing a demon with a soul," the witch replied, shrugging slightly as she smiled at her, one hand reaching up to lightly stroke the horns of the vampire's beastly form as it turned to look at her with a low growl. "He tends to have good control."

"And can I say, amen to that?" another voice said, prompting the witch to turn around and stare in shock at another figure who had no right to be there; the eldest witch, dressed in Red Riding Hood's cloak, leaning casually against one of the tables in the room. " 'Cause seriously, Angel, not exactly loving the new look..."

" _You_?" the Witch yelled in shock. "That's not possible! The wolf ate you; I saw it!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't agree with him," the eldest witch said, as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small glass phial. "See if this agrees with you."

With that, the witch threw the phial at her feet, filling her world with nothing but pain and disbelief as she began to fall apart...

* * *

  
"Damn..." Piper muttered, staring at the place where the last remnants of the puddle that had been the witch had been- if she hadn't nearly been digested because of the woman she might have felt sorry for her; as it was, having to blow a wolf apart from the inside after it ate her was _not_ an experience she was particularly keen to repeat any time soon- before she turned to look at where Paige was standing beside a creature that could only be Angel. "You two OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Paige said, stepping forward slightly to give Piper a better view of her undamaged skin- she clearly hadn't sustained more than a few bruises-, before she turned back to look at the green dinosaur-esque creature that her boyfriend had become. "Angel, on the other hand..."

Even as they watched, however, a brilliant white light surrounded the overly-demonic-looking vampire, before it faded away to reveal his usual human appearance, Angel staring slightly shakily at Paige as he reached up with one hand to examine his features.

"Oh my God..." he whispered, feeling his normal face before he turned to look at Paige with a broad smile. "Paige... I..."

Apparently unable to express his joy and relief at being back to normal in words, Angel gathered Paige up in his arms and gave her a deep, passionate kiss of gratitude, prompting Piper to turn away to give them some degree of privacy.

Glancing around, Piper noted that the other items she and her family had been dealing with over the last few hours- the axe, the rose and the pumpkin- were all back on the various tables around them, culminating in a young man with curly black hair dressed in a loose white shirt, a light green waistcoat and light brown trousers appearing out of a mirror in a glow of white light.

"You saved me," the young man said, smiling gratefully at her.

"Are you the Keeper?" Piper asked, removing the red hood while still keeping a hold of it until she found the right place to put it; she was vaguely aware of Angel and Paige having parted behind her to look at the Keeper, but didn't think it would be appropriate to glance behind just to check that.

"No, his apprentice," the young man replied, his grin fading as he glanced over towards a corner of the room. "Or at least... I was."

Following his gaze, Piper could only stare in sorrow at the sight of an old man dressed in brown robes lying on the ground, everything about him making his currently-deceased status obvious.

"Sorry 'bout that..." Paige said, moving over to place an awkward comforting hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Hold on..." Piper muttered, looking apprehensively over at the former apprentice. "Our sister was trapped in the pumpkin; if he didn't come back to life, does that mean she won't either?"

"No, no, they were victims of fairy tale magic," the apprentice said, indicating Angel as he spoke. "She'll just revert to normal like he did; she'll be fine."

He smiled slightly as he noticed something else still missing. "Besides, given the absence of the second glass slipper, I think there's still a story out there that needs a happy ending..."

"Huh," Piper said briefly, before she shrugged and held out the red cloak she'd worn to get to the castle. "I guess this makes you the new keeper."

"I guess so," the now-former apprentice replied, taking the cloak from Piper with a slightly apprehensive stare, clearly uncomfortable about the suddenness of his new responsibility but nevertheless willing to face it.

"So, now that that's dealt with, how do we get out of here?" Angel asked, before he glanced backwards at the door he and Paige had come in by before returning his gaze to the new keeper. "By the way, sorry about the damage; I... wasn't really myself-"

"Compared to what could have happened, a few doors are a minor sacrifice," the young man said, nodding reassuringly at the vampire before he turned around to pick something up off another pedestal. "As for getting you all back..."

He turned around with a casual smile to present Piper with a pair of shining ruby-red slippers.

" _Wizard of Oz_?" Paige said, looking uncertainly at the keeper. "Putting aside the fact that only _one_ of us can wear those, is that even a fairy story?"

"It gets 'honorary status', really; it made quite an impact when it came out," the keeper said with a dismissive shrug. "Anyway, only one of you really _needs_ to wear them to get back; Dorothy had to carry Toto in order to get back to Kansas, and she was technically going a lot further than you're going, so as long as you all keep a tight grip of each other- shouldn't be too hard with his strength- and you'll all be fine."

* * *

  
"So... you're sure you're feeling OK?" Leo asked, looking uncertainly at Doyle as he lay slumped in a chair, his hand clutching the bruise where the wolf had struck him earlier.

"Trust me," Doyle replied, glancing at Leo with a brief smile, "compared to the migraines I get from the visions, this is kid's stuff."

"On the topic of those visions," Cole put in where he was standing slightly off to the side of the main group, clearly slightly uncomfortable (Whether because of the tuxedo or his currently cool relationships with the group at this point Leo didn't know), "given that Phoebe not being a pumpkin any more means that the witch is vanquished, where's-?"

Before Cole could finish that sentence, there was a sudden brief swirl of red magic light in the middle of the hall, and Piper appeared, one of Angel's arms around her shoulders as the other arm held Paige in position while her arms were around Angel's neck. Leo just had enough time to note the ruby slippers Piper was wearing before they vanished, leaving Piper standing barefoot as Angel and Paige stepped away from her.

"Everyone OK here?" she asked.

"Thanks to you, they are," Grams said, smiling reassuringly at Piper before she glanced over at Paige and Angel. "And... you two?"

"We're fine," Paige confirmed, smiling briefly at Angel before she turned back to Grams. "He had a few issues after what the witch did to him at first- _really_ bad temper, among other things-, but I managed to help him past the worst of it."

"Really?" Grams said, looking at Angel with the most neutral expression she'd given him to date. "So... you got past the instincts of the... 'Beast' the witch turned you into?"

"With Paige's help," Angel said, nodding slightly at her.

"True, but the fact that you got past it in the first place is still _very_ impressive..." Grams said, looking him over briefly before she turned back to Paige. "You really got through to him in a state like that?"

"Once I got the chance to talk to him he was smashing through doors for me like it was going out of fashion," Paige replied with a confirming smile.

"Quite..." Grams said, nodding slightly before she smiled briefly at the vampire. "Well, if you're that determined to stay around, just..."

She paused for a moment, waving a hand as she tried to find the right word for what she wanted to say, before she finally continued with, "Don't do anything stupid, will you?"

"Count on it," Angel replied with a brief nod.

"Good," Grams said, nodding briefly at Paige and Angel before she turned back to Leo. "Well, that seems to be me no longer needed here; mind giving me a lift back?"

"Hold on; why do you have to go at all?" Piper asked.

"Because I don't belong here any more," Grams replied, walking over to place a comforting arm around Piper's shoulders. "See, you thought you needed me, but I was only here to remind you that you don't. Not even," she added, looking briefly down at Piper's stomach, "for her."

"OK, but what about me?" Phoebe asked, practically hopping over to her grandmother as she slung her arms over her and Piper's shoulders. "I feel like I didn't get to spend any time with you."

"That's OK," Grams replied, smiling briefly back at her second-youngest granddaughter. "I don't stay dead long."

"Good point," Phoebe said, nodding slightly as she gave her grandmother a brief peck on the cheek before the three parted company, Grams turning to face Paige.

"Well, do I at least get a hug goodbye?" she asked.

"You're going to go easier on my boyfriend in the future, right?" Paige said, even as the slight smile on her face made it clear that the comment wasn't entirely serious.

"After he fought off a curse like that one?" Grams replied, smiling slightly at Angel as she spoke. "Well... he's definitely got _some_ potential, I'll give him that."

"Thanks," Paige said, walking over to give the older woman a brief hug. "Good to meet you... Grams."

As she stepped back from Paige and moved over to stand beside Leo, Grams gave the three sisters a brief smile before the two of them orbed out, leaving the Halliwells, Angel, Cole and Doyle standing around the hall looking around at each other.

* * *

  
"Well," Angel said at last, glancing over at Phoebe and Cole- Cole clearly waiting for Phoebe to say something that she was definitely not entirely comfortable voicing in public, he thought it best to wait a bit before trying to talk with his friend- before he turned to Doyle, "now that that's sorted, Doyle, maybe you and I should... get back to the office; I think there's still a few forms we need to sort out..."

"What- oh, forms, right," Doyle said, noting the slight stares Phoebe was uncomfortably shooting at Cole, standing up and shooting an apologetic glance at the other sisters. "We'll finish the paperwork; see you girls later."

"Yeah, you do that," Paige said, walking over to give Angel a brief kiss before she indicated the stairs. "I need to catch up a bit on my fairy stories anyway..."

"Uh... I'm gonna just get some sleep," Piper said, evidently picking up on the mood and heading up after Paige as Doyle and Angel walked out the door, leaving Cole to talk with Phoebe.

It might not be anything like the conversation those two needed to have to straighten out their current relationship, but Angel had to hope that Cole's innocence despite Phoebe's suspicions would go some way towards improving her relationship with the man he couldn't help but still regard as a friend...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, next chapter we move on to another "Angel" rewrite- this time of "I Fall to Pieces"; one of my favourite episodes given the general creep-factor of the bad guy-, skipping over the events of "Siren Song" and "Witches in Tights"; barring the fact that Angel was able to convince Cole to simply erase Ed Miller's memory rather than killing him- the implications of which I _will_ explore in the next chapter-, the events of those episodes were essentially the same as they were originally, with any differences caused by Angel's presence being too minor to bother with rewriting them (Particularly with some of the events I've got planned for the episodes I _am_ going to rewrite taken into account; Angel VS Barbas, anyone?)


	13. Contact with Melissa

As he sat idly in his chair in the main 'reception' area of the newly-opened Angel Investigations, casually flicking through a magazine out of a lack of anything else to do with his time, Doyle wondered how long this state of inaction would actually last.

He hated to start questioning the Powers that Be- the last thing he wanted was to give them an excuse to make the migraine-inducing visions give him an even _bigger_ headache-, but he was getting rather tired of their attitude; what was the point of sending him to help out the world's only vampire with a soul when they weren't even going to give him any visions? Their last actual case had been when they'd helped a girl called Rachel deal with her abusive boyfriend's attempts to 'convince' her to take him back, which had, much to Angel's frustration when he'd spoken to Paige in the aftermath of the case, turned out to take place at the same time as the Halliwells were dealing with a Siren that had nearly driven Cole to kill Paige; that whole mess hadn't done Cole's standing with the Charmed Ones any favours.

Since then, the only business they'd had as an agency had been when Cole had asked for their help in exposing a crooked slumlord, and even that had been a strictly _pro bono_ case given that Angel and Cole had been forced to remain under the radar, particularly after that whole mess with the sisters temporarily acquiring additional superpowers and the slumlord getting it on tape. Angel had only just managed to stop Cole from incinerating the slumlord to stop him showing the tape to the media, and even then Cole had decided to step back from the sisters for a few days to give himself the chance to 'cool down' and regain some degree of control over his powers.

Quite frankly, Doyle was starting to worry about that whole situation; the last thing he wanted was to deal with a super-powered nutcase, and the more time he spent with Cole the more it became increasingly clear that the guy was starting to lose it from the sheer _scale_ of powers he'd absorbed from that 'Wasteland' Angel and Paige had told him about...

"Any news here?" Paige asked as she walked into the office.

"Nope," Doyle replied, shaking his head slightly as he looked back at her. "Not so much as a beep."

" _Damnit_..." Paige muttered, slumping slightly against the wall as she stared upward in frustration. "We sunk so much damn money into this business, and how many paying customers have we had so far?"

"Uh... one," Doyle said, pausing in momentary contemplation before he nodded in confirmation; helping the Halliwells stop that Witch hadn't been a case so much as something they'd been dropped in, and Angel just hadn't felt comfortable asking Cole for a fee even before he'd had that brief breakdown after nearly killing the slumlord.

"I mean, it's not like I suggested Angel start this _just_ for the money, I'm just saying that it'd be nice to feel like I'm actually _accomplishing_ something here," Paige said, shaking her head in frustration. "We've got a great way to earn a living _and_ fight evil without the Power of Three dominating everything, and so far we're not really managing much of either..."

"Hey, I agree with you on the lack of outgo here, but you know your boyfriend; he's not comfortable bringing up the finances with the clients," Doyle shrugged, remembering how awkward Angel had been about asking Rachel for the money, and that had been after _she'd_ hired _them_...

"And I'm not exactly comfortable with being talked about behind my back either," Angel's voice cut in, prompting the two of them to look around at the sight of their vampiric boss walking into the office with a slightly pointed look at both of them. "Look, I get that we have a business here, but I'm really not comfortable asking people for money when they're in trouble..."

He trailed off as he noticed Doyle's face suddenly scrunching up in pain, the half-demon leaning forward to grab onto the table as he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain of his visions, Paige quickly reaching over to grab a pen and paper with one hand- long experience with Phoebe had taught her to be prepared for anything when dealing with visions- while making sure to keep Doyle steady with the other.

"Ugh..." Doyle muttered, shaking his head slightly as he pressed one hand again his forehead, trying to clear his thoughts before he returned his attention to the matter of his vision. "Melissa Burns; she's staying at the Adante hotel."

"Got it," Paige said, nodding briefly at him before she turned to the computer and began rapidly typing to pull up the address of the company in question, Angel already shrugging his coat on in preparation for his part of their 'mission'.

* * *

  
As he stood silently in the Adante hotel's car park a couple of hours later, Angel once again wished that they could at least control _when_ the visions came to them; Paige had managed to print off a picture of Melissa from a company database that she'd downloaded thanks to a couple of hacking tips she'd picked up from an old friend- including the rather interesting note that Melissa had recently lived in Los Angeles before coming to San Francisco for a 'holiday' for no apparent reason; it suggested that whatever she was dealing with was something that she already knew about rather than something that was just going to select her at random and she'd been making an effort to get away from it-, but beyond that he had nothing to do but sit around and wait, particularly since Paige was currently occupied with topping up their supply of 'generic' vanquishing potions (Vanquishing potions that only required a few additional ingredients to become specifically suited for one demon or another; having pre-prepared samples available saved time later)...

Then he saw Melissa walking towards her car, dressed in a darkish green dress and top, and stepped out of his corner as she reached for the door.

"Melissa?" he asked, prompting her to turn around in a startled manner before relaxing slightly (Further evidence that she knew what they would be dealing with; she had thought that he might be someone else).

"I'm sorry," he continued, deciding to focus on the immediate matter without voicing too many theories about what was wrong with her. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Oh, I... thought you were somebody else," Melissa said, turning back to her car.

"Are you all right?" Angel asked uncertainly; his time with Paige might have helped him learn how to interact with people all over again, but he still wasn't good with talking to people who didn't know about the world he lived in.

"Yeah," Melissa replied, her tone unconvincing even to an amateur.

"My name's Angel," Angel continued, reaching into his pocket and pulling out one of the business cards Paige had arranged for Phoebe to prepare for them; hopefully the direct approach would work. "I'm in private security."

"What?" Melissa asked, turning to look at him in confusion.

"It... it's what I do," Angel elaborated, already knowing that this wasn't going to work. "It's my job."

"And you walk around in underground garages telling people this because...?" Melissa asked sceptically.

"I think you might be in need of my services," Angel said, passing the card to her just in case.

"I don't think I can afford private security..." Melissa began uncertainly even as she took the card from him.

"It's not about money," Angel amended. "I just help people... sometimes when the police can't."

"Out of the goodness of your heart?" Melissa said, her tone evidently sceptical.

"I'm not explaining this very well..." Angel said awkwardly.

"No, but thanks," Melissa said, before she shut her door and drove off, leaving Angel staring awkwardly after her.

"If you need anything, just call that number!" he called after her, already knowing that this meeting hadn't gone as well as it could have.

* * *

  
"I scared her," he reflected grimly as he sat back in the office, Doyle and Paige sitting on the other side of his desk.

"Hey; from what I've heard, it sounds like she was scared already," Paige said, smiling reassuringly at her boyfriend. "You probably couldn't have done anything to _stop_ her panicking no matter what you tried..."

"Am I intimidating?" Angel asked, looking awkwardly at Paige. "I mean, when we first met... did I put you off?"

"Angel, in the situation I was in back when we met, I was _already_ annoyed with everything; given that there's nothing you could have done to make me feel better, that's not exactly the best question to ask me," Paige said, shrugging apologetically at her boyfriend before she assumed a more serious expression. "Seriously, though, the only _really_ intimidating thing about you- if anything- is the whole 'black-on-black' look you've got on you; when people actually get talking to you, you come off as... well, a bit awkward, really."

"Too many years alone," Angel said briefly, before he looked at Paige. "Maybe you should talk to her..."

"Look, we don't want to start getting too pushy right now; if the girl's already freaking out, we're not helping anybody by trying to _make_ her trust us," Paige said, shaking her head resolutely. "I'll try talking to her when she comes here; trying to talk to her in that situation isn't going to accomplish anything at this point."

"Point..." Angel said with a brief nod, before he sighed. "I just can't shake the feeling that we need to get involved now; this shouldn't be about money."

"It isn't," Doyle said.

"Huh?" Paige asked, looking over at Doyle. "Weren't you the one who was just saying-?"

"It's about doing what's best for the people you've helped," Doyle clarified, prompting pointed stares from his two colleagues. "People get attached to a mysterious saviour, and can you blame them? But as long as you're just a man who's doing a job- and getting paid-, they can feel like they've paid their debt to you after the situation's dealt with and they can move on, independent-like."

After a moment's silence, Paige nodded briefly at Doyle.

"That has to be the best way to explain how us asking for money isn't selfish that I've _ever_ heard," she said, nodding at her new half-demon colleague with a smile. "You're smarter than you look."

"Smart enough to get your sister interested?" Doyle asked with a brief, hopeful grin.

"So long as you're talking about Phoebe... maybe," Paige said, waving her hand slightly as she smiled at Doyle before looking back at Angel. "Trust me; right now the best thing you can do is wait-"

The phone rang before Paige could finish her sentence, prompting her to reach over and pick up the object in question with a casual smile. "Angel Investigations; we help the helpless."

She paused for a moment to listen to the voice on the other end before nodding. "No, now would be fine; see you soon."

"Melissa?" Angel asked as Paige hung up the phone.

"She's coming in," Paige confirmed, smiling reassuringly at Angel. "Looks like you didn't freak her out _that_ badly..."

* * *

  
"It's been going on for about... almost eight months now," Melissa said, shakily sipping at a cup of coffee Paige had provided for her as she sat opposite Angel's desk after her arrival in the office. "It wasn't so bad at first..."

"What's his name?" Angel asked.

"Doctor Ronald Meltzer," Melissa replied. "He's a neurosurgeon. I had an infected nerve behind my right eye; he operated and saved my sight. Afterwards he asked me out; I didn't really want to, but..."

"He'd helped you and you felt obligated, huh?" Paige finished, looking sympathetically at the other woman. "Plus, the doctor thing had to help; my sister married an ex-army-medic."

"Yeah..." Melissa said, nodding briefly at Paige before she continued. "Anyway, I had one drink with him, one time, and then..."

She swallowed. "Then he started calling me, a _lot_. He started showing up at my work, my apartment, saying that we had something special, that we should get _married_..."

"And then it got worse?" Angel asked.

"I know it's stupid," Melissa continued, shaking her head in brief self-frustration, "but I can feel him watching me... all the time. I mean, I only decided to go on holiday last week- I though that he might lose interest if I wasn't actually in Los Angeles for him to find-, and now he's not only here on some 'consultancy trip', but..."

She shivered slightly. "This morning, he knew I took my Xanitab when I was alone in the bathroom; I mean, how did he _see_ that?"

She took another sip of the coffee and sighed. "He's just _everywhere_ ; I don't think I can take much more of this..."

"You won't have to," Paige said, nodding resolutely at her. "We're going to help deal with this, Melissa; trust me on that."

"Exactly," Angel said, nodding in agreement. "Paige will make sure you get back to your hotel safely; we'll take it from here."

"Thanks," Melissa said, taking another sip of the coffee. "I really appreciate you all listening... how did you know I needed help?"

"We know a guy in the police department," Paige said before Angel could answer the question himself- it wasn't how they'd learned about her current problem, but it had the equal advantage of it not being a lie- before she and Melissa walked out of the office, leaving Doyle and Angel looking thoughtfully at each other.

"Stalker doctor, eh?" Doyle said, glancing over at Angel with a slight shudder. "Now _that's_ kinda creepy..."

"Which raises the question of how he's doing this," Angel said reflectively. "Can he turn invisible, or is it astral projection of some sort?"

"Speakin' as the not-so-magic guy here, we might want to think about asking Leo for his opinion on this..." Doyle suggested uncertainly.

"Maybe, but we need to establish ourselves as ourselves at this point; the Halliwells are good with vanquishing their opponents, but we don't want to start _depending_ on that way of doing things," Angel said (Personally, he'd always been somewhat surprised that the Halliwells only relied on the Book of Shadows to get information about whatever they were up against; he'd need to see about encouraging a greater awareness of the potential resources available to them if things kept up). "You see if you can find anything about Meltzer himself; I'm going to go talk to our friend in the police department."

* * *

  
As he walked into the main office of the police department, Angel had to admit that he was feeling slightly apprehensive about this current strategy. Darryl had seemed amendable to the idea of serving as the new agency's police contact during the initial meeting where Paige had brought the idea up in the first place, but aside from providing Angel with the necessary paperwork to start the agency the two of them hadn't had that much contact...

"Angel?" Darryl said, looking curiously up at the vampire as Angel approached his desk. "What's up?"

"We have a case I'd appreciate some info on," Angel said by way of response.

"What kind of info?" Darryl asked.

"Melissa Burns," Angel replied. "A client; she's been stalked, and I think it could get ugly."

"Trust me on this; whatever the source, stalkers are always ugly," Darryl said, shaking his head slightly as he sat down at his computer and turned it on, studying the screen for a few moments before he looked uncertainly up at Angel. "You _are_ aware she's from Los Angeles, right?"

"Yeah, I know; she's down here on vacation and the stalker followed her," Angel replied. "He's a doctor; operated on the girl a few months back and he's been following her ever since."

"Doctor Ronald Meltzer?" Darryl asked, looking curiously at the vampire.

"Yeah," Angel confirmed. "You got something on that?"

"Tell me about it," Darryl said grimly as he studied the screen. "Girl tried to file a restraining order against him two months ago, but the doctor responded and denied everything. Then his lawyers..."

He swore grimly.

"What?" Angel asked.

"His lawyers," Darryl replied. "Wolfram & Hart; not got any branches here, but a couple of friends of mine in other cities have described them as basically the law firm Johnny Cochrane wouldn't join."

"Not pleasant people, huh?" Angel asked.

"To say the least," Darryl responded, incredulity evident as he continued to read the file. "Not only did the doctor get off scot-free, his lawyers actually got a restraining order against _her_."

"No record of violence on his part?" Angel asked.

"Nothing here, anyway," Darryl replied, before he looked uncertainly at Angel. "You're thinking he'll snap?"

"Let's just say I'm not discounting that as an option," Angel replied.

"I'll see about getting a uniform on her hotel, but if this is anything like what you guys normally tackle, I can't make any promises," Darryl said, before he leaned over slightly so he could address Angel in a lower voice. "Just out of curiosity, how... _weird_... is this?"

"All we know so far is that he can see her when nobody else should be there," Angel replied. "Melissa's freaking out; she just took this holiday to get away from Meltzer and he followed her down here for a 'consultancy post'..."

"Damn..." Darryl muttered, shaking his head reflectively before he looked back at Angel. "You'd better make sure you sort this out right; right now she _needs_ to fight back at this guy if she's going to get through."

"Y'know, generally it's _our_ job to fight these things-" Angel began.

"Beating up the bad guys is one thing; I've put away a few stalkers before, and what _really_ sucks about them is that you know that, half the time, the guy's still winning even when he's locked up. This girl feels scared enough of him to run off like that, she's never going to get herself back to the way she was until she stands up to him herself."

Angel couldn't deny that statement; from his time as Angelus, he knew all too well that stalkers didn't stop having an effect on you just because _they_ weren't there (He'd faked his death as Angelus once or twice to maximise his effect on his victims, and he'd enjoyed watching them act anxious even when they 'knew' he was dead).

The problem was figuring out how to do that when they still didn't know what they were actually _dealing_ with....


	14. Meltzer's Secret

Paige hated to sound like she was taking pleasure in someone else's trouble, but she had to admit, so far Melissa's case had proven to be far more interesting than most of the vanquishes she'd performed with her sisters, although the detective element of it probably contributed to that; it was nice to feel that she wasn't just delivering punishment to the bad guys physically, but outwitting them _mentally_ as well.

With Angel currently checking out Meltzer's office for any kind of ideas or information about what Meltzer might be doing to keep an eye on Melissa when he wasn't there, and Doyle simply keeping an eye on Melissa- Leo might have been better at the stealth thing, but Paige didn't want to start automatically turning to her sisters every time they had a case; the vision had come for Angel, and they'd handle it themselves until they knew they couldn't-, Paige had decided to try and learn more about Meltzer on a business level, and had managed to arrange an interview with one of the nurses working with Meltzer at the hospital.

"Another article about Meltzer?" the nurse said as she sat down opposite Paige, looking at her in slight surprise. "I thought one was published last month?"

"Yeah, well, what can I say?" Paige replied, trying to keep in mind some of the tips she'd indirectly picked up from Phoebe about reporters that she'd worked with at the _Bay Mirror_. "Our readers at _Diagnostic Orthopaedics_ seem endlessly fascinated with him; he's got quite a reputation from what I've heard."

"You've heard?" the nurse asked, looking at her curiously.

"I try and limit what I know about my subjects professionally before I start writing about them; don't want to allow my views to colour the facts too much," Paige said briefly. "So, what's the scoop?"

"Well, he's definitely skilled at what he does," the nurse replied with a slight smile. "Before he became an ocular surgeon he specialised in orthopaedics. He developed nerve and blood vessel accelerants that helped a lot of people."

"How, exactly?" Paige asked uncertainly; her knowledge of biology was fairly limited even _before_ she factored in the fact that her current boyfriend's very existence as a sentient being violated most natural laws (He had brain activity but no pulse; seemed like a pretty good contradiction to her).

"When you sever a limb, there's only so much time to reattach before it atrophies," the nurse explained, prompting a brief nod of understanding from Paige as she listened. "Doctor Meltzer's work extended that time significantly. Plus, he's of one of the best in the business at reattaching severed nerves."

"Right..." Paige said, nodding thoughtfully as she studied her notes before she looked up at the nurse. "OK, he's good at his job, but how is he as a _person_?"

The nurse raised a curious eyebrow.

"What?" she asked, looking uncertainly at Paige. "How does that tie into your article?"

"Well, I have to admit, I have heard a _bit_ about this guy personally, and I... what I've heard sounds good on a professional level, but I don't _exactly_ like what I've heard about him as a person when it comes to his relationship with women," Paige said, shrugging slightly as she leaned over to more directly address the nurse. "Look, I can keep your name out of it if I need to, but... what can you tell us about him _outside_ the operating room?"

For a moment the nurse simply sat in silence, glancing slightly anxiously around herself to make sure nobody was sitting too close to them as they spoke, before she leaned over to continue speaking.

"He's... not very generous," she said, her voice low to limit the possibility of being overheard even more. "He doesn't share his techniques with the medical community at large, and a lot of what he claims to have done is pretty... radical."

"Like what?" Paige asked.

* * *

  
"Reattaching eyes, for one thing," Paige said later as she paced in Angel's office, looking uncomfortably at her boyfriend as he sat at the computer; the memory of learning what Meltzer was capable of wasn't exactly comforting. "Apparently this guy can do anything with a knife; you _really_ don't want him fixated on you."

"Got to agree with you there," Angel said, nodding briefly at Paige as he continued to study the screen. "I mean, I never acquired more than a basic knowledge of anatomy, but all I ever really wanted was people dead; factor in Meltzer's knowledge with the fact that he seems to want Melissa _alive_..."

"Yeah, that's the one bit about this I _don't_ get," Paige continued, looking at Angel in confusion, uncertain if she was going to like the answer- even if she consciously knew Angel hadn't done any of it, remembering that her boyfriend had the memories of a hundred and fifty years of brutal murders in his mind wasn't something she liked to think about- even if she recognised the need to know your enemy. "This guy's got all these resources and skills going for him; what made him fixate like this on _Melissa_ of all people?"

"Nothing," Angel said simply, his fingers still tapping away contemplatively at the computer before him. "It's not about Melissa any more; it's about rage. This guy is too messed up to deal with a real woman and he can't stand that. So he creates a fantasy about a girl he barely knows. But eventually even she fails him. So he has to hurt her, because when he looks at her all he sees is how useless he is, how damaged-"

"OK, so it's a case of 'destroy or claim her and he proves to himself that he's still a valid person', huh?" Paige said, cutting Angel off before he could go any further; understanding that Angel and Angelus weren't the same person was one thing, but that didn't mean she wanted to have much mental imagery of what he'd been like back then. " _Damn_ , that's pathetic... even if it _is_ evil and twisted."

"Too bad it doesn't help us figure out how this guy's doing what he's doing here," Angel said, shaking his head as he pulled a book out of a drawer in the desk and showed it to Paige.

" _Anything's Possible_ by Doctor Vinpur Natpudan?" Paige said, studying the cover in confusion before glancing over at Angel. "I read a bit about him in a couple of classes; wasn't he that self-help guru who made a lot of noise about his theories a few years back before he vanished?"

"To be more specific, according to what I've found, he had a nervous breakdown shortly after conducting an exclusive retreat for a group of well-known yogis and doctors," Angel continued, indicating the web page he was currently looking at, topped by the heading of **Health Guru Denies Stay In Sanitorium**. "His theories seemed to be connected to the idea that we're everywhere at once since we're made up of the same molecules; it might account for Meltzer's current condition..."

"Because Meltzer was at that retreat, right?" Paige asked, nodding in understanding even as she rolled her eyes slightly in frustration. "Why is there always _somebody_ who's out to make something bad out of something that someone started out to help people...?"

"If we knew that, things would be so much simpler than they are," Angel said simply, before he pulled up another window on the screen. "Time to get direct."

"'I hope you have the nerve to believe that I need help with Ronald Meltzer'?" Paige read off the screen, before glancing at the book in her hands and opening it to reveal a dedication saying ' _Thanks for giving me the "nerve" to believe_ '. "You stole this book from him?"

"Yeah," Angel replied briefly.

"Fair enough," Paige concluded with a shrug; after everything Meltzer had done to Melissa so far, stealing his book wasn't exactly something that Paige could bring herself to feel particularly guilty about.

* * *

  
A couple of hours later, Paige- Angel had wanted to go, but given the distance to the address provided Paige had felt that it made more sense for her to orb there while leaving Angel to keep an eye on the situation as it developed- sat in the darkened room that served as the now-reclusive Doctor Natpudan's living room, the doctor in question sitting opposite her.

For a man who had once given several self-help lectures, Vinpur Natpudan was surprisingly jittery. While he'd greeted her politely enough when she'd shown up on his doorstep, he'd avoided looking directly at her even as he showed her to his living room, and even now that she was sitting opposite him he seemed to prefer to focus on his hands- which he constantly rubbed as though he was trying to wash them- rather than facing her.

"You said in your e-mail that Doctor Meltzer might... hurt an innocent woman," Natpudan said after a brief silence. "What is it that you think I can do about that?"

"We think that he might be using some things he picked up from your research to... help him do what he's doing," Paige said after a brief, contemplative pause; without any clear knowledge on what had prompted the guy to cut himself off from the world like this, it would be best to stick as close to the truth as possibly without giving anything away that might make him too scared. "My colleagues and I... don't think he's like other people."

"No, he's not," Natpudan replied with a slight smile that faded almost as soon as it had appeared. "Of course, no two people are alike; God, in his infinite variety and wisdom, likes to keep it interesting."

"How did you meet him?" Paige asked, even as she noted that she could see how this man had done so well back in the day; even in his current state, he made some interesting arguments.

"He came to one of my lectures," Natpudan explained. "My operating thesis at the time was that the mind is the single most powerful force in the universe; in any average human it regulates billions of cells- and that is with 80% of the brain still untapped."

"And... you suggested what someone could be capable of if they tapped into the _rest_ of that brain power, right?" Paige continued, remembering some of the theories she'd heard at school from some of her more science-fiction-enthusiast friends about the possibility of mastering telepathic abilities if someone did what Natpudan was suggesting.

"I introduced Doctor Meltzer to psychic... surgeons; yogis that can shut down their somatic systems for days at a time," Natpudan continued, swallowing slightly as he continued. "But he... eclipsed us all. Until Doctor Meltzer, my studies had been based on theories and hearsay, but he exploded all that. That's when I stopped teaching."

"Because you... stopped believing?" Paige asked uncertainly.

"No," Natpudan replied, looking up at her with a desperate intensity behind his eyes. "Because I began to believe... completely."

Paige didn't need her long experience with people trying to duck around the truth- when you were dealing with domestic abuse cases you had to learn pretty quickly who was responsible for what- to know that Natpudan was telling the truth.

The problem was that she didn't like the implications of what she was hearing...

"You're saying he can... shut himself down?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the doctor to make sure she was on the right lines. "Uh... how _effectively_ can he do that?"

"Effectively enough that he has learned to go... beyond the human norm," Natpudan replied simply.

* * *

  
"He can _what_?" Angel repeated, already heading for his car as he kept his mobile pressed against his ear, grateful for the lessons Paige had given him in how to work the thing.

" _Basically, he was able to essentially 'cut himself up' using the psychic techniques he learnt from the yogis to shut down his nervous system to prevent it from actually_ hurting _him, and then he used that idea about us all being connected to retain a psychic connection to his parts even when he's not_ connected _to them_ ," Paige replied, clearly sceptical at the discovery herself even as her voice clearly expressed her fear at the implications of what she'd learned. " _I'm trying to go over how much he'll be able to accomplish in this state so that we know what he's capable of, but Natpudan's starting to get uncomfortable with it; I've got that he can take his hands off and send them walking around- and that just gives me a whole 'Addams Family' vibe that I_ really _find creepy- but so far that's all he's been willing to give me_."

"Do what you can on figuring out the rest of his capabilities; I'll get back to you once I've checked in with Melissa," Angel said, pulling up outside Melissa's hotel and walking into the lobby. He was just about to ask the receptionist for Melissa's room number when a woman came running down the stairs, screaming in terror and wearing only a simple black slip that was probably her nightwear; Angel was moving towards her even before he saw that it was Melissa.

"It's OK," he said, looking reassuringly at her amid her terrified screams even as he spared some of his attention to glare at the guests around them; he was willing to accept that Melissa may have to leave the hotel after he'd calmed her down a bit- running around like this wasn't exactly going to be encouraging for the hotel's business, after all-, but that didn't mean she had to put up with any questions at a time like this. "It's OK... I'm here... we're not going to let him near you..."

He just wished he felt as confident about that as he was trying to sound; Meltzer might be pretty much human in a fight, but stopping someone who could take himself apart like that would _not_ be easy.

* * *

  
Staring at the other woman as she sat shaking in Angel's kitchen, dressed in a jacket and hastily-thrown-on trousers, Paige made a mental note to see about setting up a better guest room in this building than what they had so far; if they were going to be serious about this detective thing, they needed to be prepared for everything.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Angel not to do anything to take advantage an emotionally unstable woman, of course, and it wasn't like they'd had much choice but to take Melissa in- even after the initial questions had been dealt with at the hotel, she'd still been asked to leave after causing such a racket, even without the fact that the policeman assigned to guard her had been killed by someone who left no trace of their presence in the room-, but it was still something to keep in mind for the future...

"God..." Doyle muttered, shivering slightly as he helped put the last of Melissa's suitcases away in her temporary room, Melissa's story- hastily narrated to them by Angel with the necessary gaps filled in as they helped her leave the hotel- still fresh in their minds. "Not a lot of things make me shudder, but that guy's hands crawling around in the bed..."

He shot a brief, weak smile at Paige. "'Least it was just his hands down there."

Paige almost automatically felt herself go paler than Angel at that statement; the thought of what _else_ Meltzer might have sent into Melissa's bed (Assuming he _could_ detach that; it was possible that there were parts of him he'd never bothered to 'detach')...

"I so intensely wish I'd never thought o' that," Doyle said.

"Ya think?" Paige countered, before Angel walked up to them with a grim expression.

"How's Melissa?" she asked, grateful for something to take her mind in any way off Doyle's last 'suggestion'.

"Trying to sleep," Angel replied, shaking his head as he looked around at them. "This guy's coming undone."

"I'll say-" Doyle muttered.

"No, I mean he's out of control," Angel said, looking grimly between his partners. "He's killing now."

"Anything that stands between him and his obsession?" Doyle said, before his expression paled. "Don't _we_ stand between him and his obsession? I'm not putting too cowardly a point on it, but if this guy can't be contained and he can't be killed, what are we going to do about it?"

"If his body parts go too long without any blood and oxygen, they're going to deteriorate," Angel said grimly. "He's not going to be able to put himself back together from that no matter how much psychic surgery he knows-"

"Hold on, we're going to _kill_ him?" Paige said, holding up one hand as she looked urgently between Angel and Doyle. "I mean, I get that the guy's a jerk, but I didn't start this agency so we could kill _humans_ -"

"I'm not thinking of making a habit of this, but it's not like there's much of a choice left right now," Angel said, looking over at Paige apologetically. "Trust me, I don't like discussing this either, but Meltzer's gone beyond the point where we can just stop him and leave it at that; with his abilities, permanent containment is the only way to stop him."

Paige could only stare back at Angel for a moment, torn between her own faith in her boyfriend and the reminder that he was centuries older than her with a significantly different view of the world to what she had, before she finally nodded grimly.

As much as she preferred to think of herself as someone who protected humans rather than killed them, no matter what they'd done, she couldn't shake the fact that, sometimes, they might find themselves facing a situation where they _had_ to kill an otherwise human person because they literally had no other choice.

Then again, it was like everyone always said; if being a hero was easy, everyone would do it.

"So... what's the plan?" she said uncertainly. "Break him down and box him up?"

"Until we get anything better," Angel said, indicating the apartment around him. "In the meantime, we need to tape up the ventilation; anything that limits Meltzer's chance to get in here right now has to take priority."

"I second that," Doyle said, walking over to a nearby storage drawer to pull out a couple of rolls of duct tape and turn towards the vents.

"I could call Piper and Phoebe, see if they can suggest any spells that could help us keep him out," Paige said.

"Could be worth a shot," Angel said, nodding at her before he indicated the kitchen area behind them. "I'll get back to Melissa; while you're on the phone, could you see about ordering some steel boxes to contain Meltzer's parts once he's separated?"

Nodding in understanding, Doyle and Paige turned around to head for their assigned duties, Paige flicking open the phone book while trying not to think too much about what she was doing; so long as she just thought about _finding_ storage boxes, she wouldn't have to think too much about what they were going to do with them...


	15. Containing Meltzer

As she hung up the phone following her call to the last delivery company on her list- arranging for steel boxes to be provided for them at this time of night was not something she'd ever expected to do with her life-, Paige paused for a moment as she heard Melissa talking with Angel; given how quiet the woman had been earlier- albeit shaking like a leaf-, the fact that she had anything to say at this point was a _definite_ improvement.

"...not possible," Melissa said shakily as she sat in the other room with Angel, trying to drink a cup of coffee that they'd provided for her. "I mean, he can really..."

"Yeah," Angel confirmed. "Remember I told you I sometimes handle things the police can't? This is one of those things. I'm going to take care of him. Doyle and Paige are going to stay here with you; I want you to try and get some rest."

"Thanks," Melissa replied, swallowing slightly as she nodded at him. "But I'm not going to cry any more... at least, I hope not. I'm tired of crying and being afraid."

"You don't have to be afraid," Angel said simply.

"You're just duct taping me in for fun?" Melissa countered, a slight trace of fear entering her shaken voice for the first time since she'd started speaking.

"You've survived a living hell these last few months and you're still standing, while he's coming unhinged at not being able to control you," Angel said simply. "He's the weak one; you're the strong one."

It was moments like that one that reminded Paige why she'd fallen for Angel; he might not always say the right thing in a social situation, but he could be counted on to say the right thing when he _had_ to say it...

The phone ringing on the 'special' line Angel had established prior to his visit to Meltzer's office to book a fake appointment- Doyle had a surprising number of contacts for a half-demon who so far had told them nothing about his life before he walked into her boyfriend's apartment; how many people could set up a short-term phone number like this on such short notice?- drew Paige's attention away from the conversation between her boyfriend and their client, prompting her to hurry over to the desk and pick up the phone.

"Jensen International Holdings?" she said, hoping that she remembered the name right; she generally had a good memory for this kind of fine detail, but she _had_ been under a lot of stress with the current case and Angel had only mentioned the name once. "How may I direct your call?"

"I need to talk with Brian Jensen," the voice on the other end replied.

"Please hold," Paige said, putting the phone on hold and hurrying over to the kitchen.

"He's on the line," she said, prompting Angel to get up and head for the office, leaving Paige to shrug slightly at Melissa.

"Sorry about this whole mess," she said to the other woman, in an attempt to begin a conversation that she already knew was going to be awkward. "We only really opened for business a few weeks ago; we're pretty good at the 'dealing with the strange' part of the equation, but we're still finding our way as far as the 'running a business' angle goes."

"Oh," Melissa said, nodding slightly in understanding before she looked curiously at Paige. "So... if you don't mind me asking... how did you and Angel... meet?"

"He... offered to help me out after my life got a bit... stranger... than it was before," Paige said simply, trying to think of the right way to phrase her answer without freaking Melissa out more; she had enough trouble coping with what Meltzer was right now, and Paige doubted that she'd be comforted if she knew that magic was real. "He gave me a few self-defence lessons, we ended up spending a lot of time together, and, well..."

"Oh," Melissa said, her eyes widening slightly as understanding hit her. "You mean you and he are..."

"We are," Paige confirmed with a smile, before Angel walked back into the kitchen.

"It's set up," he said with a brief nod at her. "I'll sort things out there; you and Doyle stay put until I get back."

"Got it," Paige confirmed with a brief smile at her boyfriend. "Good luck."

"I'll be back soon," Angel said, smiling reassuringly at Melissa before he turned to leave the office, leaving Melissa looking uncertainly at Paige.

* * *

  
Almost an hour later, the steel boxes having been ordered and waiting in Angel's office for when they would be needed- those late-night delivery companies were really a _serious_ bonus for their line of work; she'd need to see about giving them a tip when they had more money to spend on stuff like that-, Paige was anxiously pacing in the main living area of the apartment, Angel still frustratingly conspicuous by his absence, when Doyle joined her, glancing over at the bed where Melissa had gone to rest after finishing her tea.

"Think I got all the holes," he said, glancing back to follow Paige's gaze. "She OK?"

"Just resting," Paige said, shaking her head as she sat down in the closest chair with a slight sigh. "God... how do some people _get_ like that?"

"Well, she's been through a lot-" Doyle began.

"I meant Meltzer," Paige clarified as she looked back at the Irish half-demon, indicating a nearby couch for him to sit in as she continued speaking. "I mean, I didn't always meet the best people when I was in social work- there were definitely a few abusive parents or spouses that I thought were evil _before_ I learned that magic was real-, but this Meltzer guy's almost as warped as Drusilla without anyone even _trying_ to make him that way..."

"Drusilla?" Doyle asked, before the memory seemed to come back to him. "Oh yeah; Angel's old protégé from his bad vamp days, huh?"

"Drove her mad and then turned her to make the torment last forever; she was his best achievement as Angelus and one of the things he felt the most guilty about afterwards," Paige confirmed with a brief nod at Doyle. "Every other demon I ever fought was either a monster or a fighter- either they were just basically interested in killing us or they had some kind of long-term plan that we either fell into by accident or needed us to work out-, but Drusilla..."

She shuddered slightly at the memory of Angel's dark-haired childe. "God... that woman was just... _whacko_."

"Yeah, I saw a bit o' her in the vision that sent me to you guys; definitely didn't strike me as the sanest person out there," Doyle said, nodding in a slightly reflective manner before he looked back at Paige. "And... you think Meltzer's that bad?"

"Worse," Paige said simply. "You could at least remember that Drusilla had been a victim at one point; this guy's a respected doctor who learnt how to do amazing stuff from both the normal _and_ supernatural side of the tracks with no indication anyone did anything to him, and _still_ can't think of anything better to do with his time than torment an innocent girl because otherwise he has to face up to just how _screwed_ he is..."

She groaned in frustration. "I mean, I get that there's probably stuff we don't know about the guy, but the fact is that he's doing all this when he could be so much better and we don't even know if he _knows_ about actual magic and demons; all this Zen philosophy stuff he's learned on its own could probably-"

She froze, just in time for Doyle to hear what had attracted her attention; the sound of something rattling in another part of the apartment. Picking up the nearest weapons- Doyle taking up a small axe while Paige took hold of a similarly-sized dagger-, the two of them slowly walked into the room where the noise had come from, only to find no trace of anything that could have caused the noise in question.

"Must've been the wind..." Doyle said briefly after a quick scan of the surrounding room showed no sign of anything that could have caused the noise.

"Yeah... the wind..." Paige said, briefly wishing that she hadn't told Piper and Phoebe that she was 'working late' that night; not only did it open up the possibility of all kinds of good-natured teasing from Phoebe next morning regarding what she might or might not have done, but it also meant that they wouldn't think anything about her not getting home any time soon.

 _Damnit_... she'd never realised just how much she'd come to depend on Piper's ability to immobilise most of their enemies' attempts to use a sneak attack on them until she realised that she didn't have that option available to her any more...

"So, you want to play some cards, or you want to watch the tube?" Doyle asked, shrugging inquiringly at her in an obvious attempt to try and put whoever might or might not be trying to sneak into the building off-guard; maybe if he thought they didn't know he was there he'd become careless...

"The cards option sounds good, but I don't really know any games off the top of my head; might be a bit tricky..." Paige began, only to trail off when another rattling sound reached their ears, prompting the two of them to slowly turn around and head in the direction of the new sound, located in a small back room of the building's cellar that Doyle and Paige both recognised as Angel's sewer access door.

"Oh, _crap_..." Paige muttered, seeing two fingers reach out through thin slits in the metal bars to push the bolt that kept the hatch closed off to the side; she kept meaning to work out a means of making that thing more secure- maybe a spell that stopped anyone using it who wasn't already allowed to do so-, but the sewers weren't exactly something you expected people to use to access your house, and something else just kept on coming up and she'd never managed to get round to it.

As the fingers retreated back down into the sewers as the bolt was moved out of the way, Doyle crouched down, axe raised, ready to attack whatever was down there as Paige waited behind him...

Then something grabbed her by the head and waist, one hand across her mouth while the arm around her waist seemed to end only with a stump, and she barely had time to register Doyle suddenly falling forward into the hole in the ground before her attacker rammed her against the nearest wall, her vision blurring and fading as a door opened and she found herself inside what looked like Angel's closet...

* * *

  
Sitting sharply up in bed, stirred from her sleep by the noise just outside her door, Melissa's eyes widened in horror at the sight before her; Ronald Meltzer, crouching down nonchalantly as a hand- a _hand_ \- crawled towards him, like some disgusting giant pink spider, only to _reattach itself_ to his _wrist_...

"Hi," Ronald said, casually adjusting the cuff of his shirt as he stood up and turned to face her. "Getting some rest?"

"I- what are you?" Melissa asked, fear, shock and confusion warring inside her as she looked at the man who had tormented her life these past weeks.

"I'm more than meets the eye," Ronald replied with a grim tone. "But you never bothered to find out, did you? You just took advantage of my kindness."

For a moment Melissa thought about trying to interrupt, but then Ronald pulled a scalpel out of his jacket pocket and she automatically fell silent; the last thing she wanted was to provoke an armed man when there might still be a way out of here...

Ignoring whatever else Ronald was saying, Melissa tried to run out the door and dash past him, only for him to cut her off and force her back into the room, cornering her against the nearest wall.

"You disappoint me, Melissa," Ronald said, leaning in to glare at her.

"I know," Melissa replied shakily. "I-I didn't mean-"

"No, no, no, no," Ronald replied, shaking his head as he looked at her, raising the scalpel to near her face. "Stop now, you're babbling."

"I think..." Melissa began shakily, wishing Ronald would just back off; hadn't he done enough-?

" _You've survived a living hell these last few months and you're still standing, while he's coming unhinged at not being able to control you_..."

Angel's words, spoken only hours ago, came back to her, leaving her with a renewed strength that she'd almost forgotten about ever since this mess had started.

Ronald wasn't the strong one in this nightmarish mess; all he'd done was try to force her to do what _he_ wanted, while she had managed to hold on to who she was and what she wanted even when it would have been so much easier to give in to him...

"I think you disappoint yourself," she said at last, wishing she sounded more confident as she spoke to the man who had driven her to the brink even if he'd never managed to push her over it. "I think you gave up on being loved a long time ago... and now you're just another _creep_ who gets off on pain."

"Now, don't try to use your childish-" Ronald began.

"And you know that I would be _crazy_ to want to touch you," Melissa continued, turning her full contempt of the man before her into her glare as she stared at him. "To wake up next to... little... pieces of... whatever you are-"

"Shut up," Ronald retorted, his breathing heavy as he stepped back as though trying to decide what he wanted to do.

"You turned yourself into a _freak_ , Ronald," Melissa hissed at him resolved to say her peace now that she had the opportunity to do so. "A vile, repulsive freak, and I'm _done_ being afraid of you! You can cut me, and you can kill me, but it still won't change what you are."

Even as she spoke, she noticed Ronald's throat bulging in a disconcerting manner- it reminded her briefly of images she'd seen in movies of something trying to crawl out of the human body-, but refused to let that stop her; now that she had started saying this, she wasn't going to stop.

"Angel was right," she said, glaring at him as she lowered her voice to a malicious whisper. "You're weak!"

"I'm weak?" Ronald yelled, leaning forward to glare at her. "Then how was it I killed him?"

"Inefficiently," a voice said from behind them, a door suddenly opening to reveal Angel standing in the door, looking casually at her and Ronald.

"You can't be alive!" Ronald said, looking incredulously at the detective. "You... you're not human!"

"You should talk," Melissa said, backing away from Ronald as Angel glared at him; even if she didn't know what he had meant by that last comment about him killing Angel, right now all that mattered was that Angel had nothing but try and help her while Meltzer had his intentions fairly clear-

Then Ronald opened his mouth and his teeth actually _came out_ \- still attached to the gums; she could have almost assumed that he'd spat out dentures if the red tendril she briefly glimpsed on the upper part- to grab onto Angel's arm, only for Angel to slam the teeth against the nearest wall, leaving Ronald reeling back in pain even as he threw a scalpel at Angel's arm, only for Angel to show no reaction as he continued to walk towards Ronald. A ferocious expression on his face, Ronald threw his right hand at Angel's throat, sending him slamming to the floor behind him as Ronald turned back to look at her, an expression on his face that could have been pathetically miserable if she didn't know that the man before her was hopelessly insane.

"We could have been so happy..." he said sadly, his right ear falling off as he spoke as though he'd lost the ability to hold himself together.

"Ronald!" Angel said, the doctor turning around just in time for Angel to hit him in the face with a pipe, sending his head flying across the room.

Melissa couldn't help but scream at the sight of Ronald Meltzer's body collapsing to the ground as a headless lump of flesh and bone; she could tell herself that Angel had been acting in self-defence, that Ronald was clearly unhinged, that he had stopped being human long ago, that nothing else could stop him from continuing to come after her until _she_ was dead...

It still didn't change the fact that she'd just witnessed someone getting _decapitated_...

"Sssh..." Angel said, stepping up to her and enveloping her in a hug as he spoke softly to her. "It's OK... he's gone... it's over... it's over..."

It was the fact of his words more than anything that helped Melissa right now.

It _was_ over...

* * *

  
"So," Paige asked as she walked into the office the next morning, looking at Angel with a nonchalant smile, "shall I take it that our endeavour to box and stop Doctor Slice N' Dice was successful?"

"He's in twelve steel boxes buried in twenty cubic feet of concrete in the floor of San Francisco's newest multi-storey car park," Angel confirmed with a smile at Paige before his expression became more serious. "How about you?"

"Bit bruised, but I'll be fine; just give me a day or two before I try orbing again," Paige replied, rubbing the back of her head with a brief wince. "I called Piper to give her an update on where I was, and..."

"Not a great conversation, huh?" Doyle asked from where he was casually leaning against a nearby bookshelf.

"Well, Piper was fine enough once she got the essentials; Phoebe apparently just had some issues when Piper mentioned that we'd killed a doctor last night," Paige replied with a slightly frustrated sigh. "I mean, she gets that we _had_ to take the guy out, don't get me wrong, but with her current issues with _Cole_ using his powers on humans like that, us doing basically the same thing isn't exactly winning us points..."

“Sorry,” Angel said, looking apologetically at the woman he loved; given her still-new relationship with her sisters, he appreciated that she felt upset whenever she had to do something that caused any kind of tension between them.

“Eh, we saved an innocent woman from a raving lunatic; I can take a few difficulties with Piper and Phoebe if that’s what we needed to do,” Paige said with a reassuring smile.

Further conversation was cut off as Melissa walked into the room, now dressed in a white blouse and a dark skirt while carrying a potted plant in one arm, looking far more relaxed than she had been only last night; even her walk appeared to have a greater confidence about it than she’d possessed before.

"Hey," she said, smiling around at the group as she handed the plant to Angel amid the responding hellos. "I brought this for you guys."

"Oh," Angel said, as he took the plant from her. "I... hope it doesn't... need light?"

"I'm sure it'll be fine in here," Melissa said reassuringly.

"Can I get you anything?" Paige asked, "A drink, a snack...?"

"No, nothing for me, thanks; I can only stay for a minute, my flight back to Los Angeles is leaving in a little while," Melissa said, smiling at the thought as she looked at Angel. "Places to go, people to see... thanks to you."

"You're... welcome," Angel replied, looking around the room slightly awkwardly.

"Uh, on that topic..." Paige said, swallowing uncomfortably herself as she realised what had made Angel so uncomfortable all of a sudden. "There's..."

"What?" Melissa asked, looking between Angel and Paige in confusion, Doyle having taken to looking at the ceiling in an attempt to distance himself from the current topic.

"There is... uh... there's the... bill?" Angel finished for his girlfriend.

"Bill who?" Melissa asked.

" _The_ bill," Angel finished, looking down at the floor as though trying to escape Melissa's questioning gaze. "For my... services."

"Oh, of course," Melissa said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a cheque that she held out to Angel. "That's the other reason I came; here."

"I'll take that, thanks," Paige said, stepping forward to take the offered piece of paper from Melissa. "And... we appreciate this, just so you know."

"I mean, I-we didn't do it for money..." Angel began, looking awkwardly at Melissa.

"Oh, please; you earned it," Melissa said, a sincere expression of gratitude on her face as she reached over to shake Angel's hand. "Well, hope I never see you again."

Angel paused for a moment at that last comment before he smiled in understanding, Doyle's prior advice regarding the role he had to play in his client's lives coming back to him.

"Me too," he said simply. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Melissa replied, before she turned around and walked back out of the door, leaving the three looking at their new cheque with varying smiles.

"Well," Doyle said at last with a nonchalant shrug, "that didn't go so badly."

"Saving the day- _without_ needing to resort to magic- _and_ getting paid for it?" Paige said, smiling as she studied the cheque in her hands. "Wait until Piper and Phoebe hear about this; we've actually made the demon-hunting thing _work_ for us..."

Noting her boyfriend's pointed stare at her, Paige held up her hands defensively. "Hey, I'm happy we helped Melissa too; I'm just saying that it's nice to know we've worked out a way of making a living that _doesn't_ include us potentially getting fired because we have to leave to vanquish demons half-way through the meeting..."

"Let's not set our sights too high here, Paige; this _is_ only our first major case..." Angel said, even as he couldn't stop himself from smiling at his girlfriend's evident enthusiasm at the evidence that the agency she had suggested they create would work out.

It might only be their first case, but it was a case that had resulted in them saving an innocent woman from a foe unlike any they'd ever fought before; whatever standard you used to judge this kind of thing, they'd done a good job here today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, with this chapter done, we move on to the next, wherein we pit the Halliwells, Angel and Doyle up against a VERY specific foe...
> 
> Any guesses what Angel and Doyle's worst fears will be?


	16. The Blood of a Demon

As he sat in the bar where he had so briefly found employment prior to his second loss of his soul- he was just grateful he hadn't spent much time hanging around P3 as Angelus given the awkward questions that might have come up; as it was, people simply assumed that he'd taken the bartending job for money to assemble the necessary financial resources to start the agency-, Angel couldn't help but constantly turn his eyes towards where Phoebe was currently having a drink with her latest date, Miles.

He knew that it wasn't really any of his business what Phoebe did in her spare time- even in Paige's case he would have been pushing his boundaries a bit; an important part of any relationship was trust, after all-, but given his friendship with Cole he felt he was at least slightly entitled to keep an eye on how Phoebe spent her spare time just in case she needed someone (He'd tried to suggest that Doyle do it, but his new friend felt slightly uncomfortable about interacting with Phoebe _completely_ on his own at this point; he claimed that he wanted her to recognise that he worked well in a group before he tried to suggest the possibility of them dating to make sure she realised that he wasn't a 'loose cannon' like Cole had been, given that Cole acting independently had been the main cause of the current problem).

He just wished that he had a better idea of how Cole was _coping_ with his current power level. Ever since that incident where Cole had nearly killed that man who'd acquired video footage of the sisters using their temporary superpowers, he'd been increasingly uncomfortable with the thought of using his powers again under any circumstances; Angel was starting to worry about the implications of Cole keeping himself under such constant restraint...

Talking of restraint, Paige was definitely taking advantage of not having real limitations on her time right now. Not only was she displaying an interesting knack for some conjuring spells from the Book of Shadows- she was currently working on summoning doves the last time he'd spoken to her-, but she'd already managed to get some rather interesting ideas for potential potion variations that she could use against some of the more prosaic demons they'd been encountering working at Angel Investigations, and the results had been interesting (If a bit basic; so far most of the potions were basic mystic 'grenades' containing spell phials that distracted and injured the demons without actually killing them).

Thoughts of his girlfriend were interrupted when Leo walked over to his booth, looking uncomfortably around them in the manner that Angel had come to recognise as Leo's 'We-have-a-magical-crisis-that-everyone-around-us-can't-know-about' look.

"What's up?" he asked, putting his drink down as he looked at the Whitelighter.

"Cole," Leo replied grimly. "He's... well, according to him, something's trying to drive him insane."

"Cole?" Angel repeated, his eyes widening at the implications of this latest news as he stood up to follow the Whitelighter into the club's back room; the thought of something out there that could affect Cole's mind wasn't something he liked to think about.

Even if Cole was on the outs with the Halliwells at the moment, Angel still considered the former Belthazor a friend, but even without their prior relationship, the concept of something capable of driving _Cole_ mad wasn't exactly an encouraging one...

"You've _got_ to be kidding me..." Angel heard Phoebe say just as he opened the door to the back room in question, revealing Phoebe standing opposite a Cole who was looking more haggard that Angel had ever seen the former assassin look. He was still dressed in a suit, but his top button was undone and his tie hung loosely around his neck, while his face had a rough expression that gave the impression that he hadn't been sleeping well.

"I'm sorry, Phoebe, but it's really important," Paige said apologetically.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Piper added, indicating to Cole that he could start talking as she sat beside Paige on a desk in the corner of the room, Angel simply taking up position by the door, slightly behind Phoebe, so that he could see everyone else in the room.

"I think that, uh, someone is trying to drive me crazy," Cole said by way of explanation.

"Well, that makes two of us," Phoebe countered.

"No, you don't understand," Cole insisted, pacing slightly as he spoke. "I don't know what's real any more, what's going on in my mind... I almost killed my secretary today, and then Leo..."

His voice trailed off as he looked at Phoebe, who seemed to have started thinking about something while Cole was speaking, her gaze directed downwards in a contemplative manner.

"Are you listening to me?" Cole asked, looking uncertainly at his ex-wife.

"Yeah," Phoebe replied, her attention once again focused on him. "But Cole, I'm not going to allow you to drag me back into your world of evil."

Angel couldn't believe what he'd just heard; Cole had come to them for help to _stop_ himself from potentially hurting someone, and Phoebe was practically automatically assuming the worst?

"I need to figure out what's going on before somebody gets hurt-!" Cole began urgently.

"How do I know this isn't just another one of your tricks to get me back?" Phoebe interjected.

"My tricks?" Cole repeated incredulously (Not that Angel could blame him; he was coming dangerously close to punching Phoebe for her stubborn refusal to recognise what they could be dealing with...).

"This is no trick," Cole continued, turning to look pleadingly at Piper and Paige. "I am _seriously_ afraid of what I might do, and I am _begging_ you for your help-"

"I'm sorry, Cole, I can't," Phoebe replied, her tone giving no indication that she was actually sympathetic. "I have to draw the line sometime, and I'm drawing it now."

After staring silently at Phoebe for a moment, Cole closed his eyes and vanished in a brief golden glow, leaving the Halliwells and the vampire alone in the room.

"Well," Angel said, turning to glare at Phoebe, "so much for you being the 'good' guys, huh? A guy comes to you for help, and what do you do? You tell him to get out."

"Whatever he's dealing with, it's not our problem any more; we can't _trust_ him-" Phoebe began, glaring at the vampire.

"There are a lot of people we sometimes can't trust; if I've learned anything about humanity from when I was Angelus, it's that anyone can be a bastard under the right circumstances, but you can't _define_ your relationships with them because they made a few mistakes in those moments," Angel said, staring in frustration at the third-born Halliwell. "Does the fact that someone hurt you in the past mean that you _automatically_ reject them if they show up wanting your help, regardless of their reasons for doing it? Someone makes some bad decisions- and Cole wasn't even fully _himself_ when he made those decisions as the Source, I'd like to point out-, and you automatically consider that _everything_ he does is going to have some kind of ulterior motive behind it?"

He held up one hand as Phoebe opened her mouth again, the glare on her face making it clear that Angel's speech had done little to change her mind.

"You know what, don't bother," he said grimly. "You can rant about your issues with Cole in your own time; right now, I'm going to go and see if my _friend_ needs help."

With that, Angel walked out of the room, shooting an apologetic look over at Paige as he walked, his mind already fixed on his current destination of Cole's penthouse, turning over his still-forming plan in his mind.

It wasn't something he was particularly _keen_ to do, he had to admit- he tried not to do this kind of thing when he had his soul unless he _really_ needed to do it, after all, and that was ignoring the potential side-effects that he might have to deal with if he took things too far when dealing with someone as powerful as Cole-, but right now it was the best chance Cole had of getting _any_ kind of help if the Power of Three was unavailable and Angel was the only person willing to help him.

It might not be much long-term help, but short-term assistance in a situation like this was the best that Angel could provide on his own right now; maybe if he could help Cole come up with a short-term solution to this problem it could give them time to persuade the sisters to help them come up with a more long-term one...

* * *

  
As Angel walked into Cole's penthouse from the elevator, he only just managed to duck under the blast of an energy ball as Cole hurled it at the still-opening doors.

" _Get OUT of here, demon_!" Cole yelled, a focused intensity in his eyes that Angel couldn't recall seeing on Cole's face even when he'd been Angelus.

" _COLE_!" Angel yelled, standing up in a brief attempt to talk his old friend back to his senses before Cole launched a blast of lightning at him. "Cole, damnit, it's _me_ ; snap _out_ of this-!"

As Cole's latest attack nearly singed Angel's coat- if he'd been human he would have been dead already, and even his enhanced reflexes were hard-pressed to keep ahead of Cole's attacks right now-, Angel decided to forget trying to talk his friend down. Diving under Cole's next energy ball, Angel slid briefly forwards along the floor before he planted his hands on the ground and swung his legs around in a powerful kick, knocking Cole off his feet and giving Angel time to get above his friend.

"Cole, _enough_!" he said, looking urgently at the former Belthazor. "Cole, it's _me_ ; it's Angel! I'm not here to kill you; I'm _Angel_..."

After a moment's silent staring, Cole nodded in understanding, uncertainly getting to his feet as Angel stepped back.

"Oh God..." he muttered, shaking his head as he looked apologetically at the vampire. "Angel, I'm _sorry_..."

"Forget it," Angel replied, waving a dismissive hand at Cole before he looked directly at him. "Anyway, it kind of ties into why I'm here; I had an idea about how we could maybe deal with your current... issues."

"What?" Cole asked, looking at the vampire with only slightly-restrained eagerness, evidently unwilling to get his hopes up until he'd heard the answer.

"Well... did Phoebe ever tell you about that doctor who gained the ability to use their powers after he injected himself with samples of their blood?" Angel asked.

"Well, she maybe mentioned it once, but-" Cole began, before his eyes widened in realisation. "Oh no, you are _not_ -"

"Look, I'm not saying that I'll take _all_ your powers; I'm just saying that... well, 'splitting the load' has to _help_ , right?" Angel replied. "We both know that the mental energy required to keep that much power under control can't be good for your long-term health no matter how in control you are; all I'm suggesting is that I take _some_ of them to give you a better chance to find a balance-"

"And have _you_ deal with this?" Cole countered, shaking his head resolutely. " _Not_ happening, Angel-"

"If you take into account the fact that you absorbed these powers when you were only human, I've probably got a better chance of coming through it than you did," Angel retaliated, stepping forward slightly so that he was standing almost directly in front of Cole, the vampire and the demon keeping their gazes locked on each other as they did so.

After a moment where the two silently stared at each other, Cole nodded.

"All right," he said at last. "If you think you can cope..."

He shrugged with a slight smile. "Well, I think we both know that making a vampire give up on something when they've started doing it isn't exactly possible most of the time."

Nodding briefly at his friend in thanks, Angel didn't give either of them time to think about what he was about to do; shifting into his vamp face, Angel stepped forward and bit down on Cole's neck before either of them could change their minds. For a moment the sudden shock of power entering his body filled and nearly overwhelmed his system, but he forced that shock down to focus on his drink; if he could just take _enough_ of Cole's power into himself, maybe it would be enough to give Cole's mind time to get used to the sheer scale of power he possessed at the moment...

_NO!_

Angel barely had time to register the sound- or was it the thought; it was hard to tell in this situation- when he suddenly felt as though something had forced its way _between_ his fangs and Cole's flesh, throwing him back into the nearest wall. For a moment Angel could only keep his eyes closed, a terrific ringing in his ears as his head felt like someone had stuck a food-mixer inside his skull and set it to maximum, forcing the vampire to press his palms against his eyes in a desperate attempt to try and convince his brain that it _wasn't_ oozing out of his skull...

Then he looked up, and his eyes widened in horror at the sight before him; a man of some sort, dressed in black with grey hair, positioned almost exactly where he had been when drinking from Cole, his body initially intangible but gaining physical presence as every moment went by. As a black 'glow'- for lack of a better description- surrounded Cole's body, Cole screamed in agony as the creature- because Angel was certain that the figure before them couldn't be human- spread his arms wide and allowed the black energy to flow into him, his body solidifying before them even as the vampire and the ex-demon watched.

" _Barbas_..." Cole said, his breathing suddenly heavy as though he'd performed some great physical exertion, staggering up to his feet as he stared in horror at the man before them.

"Hold on, Barbas?" Angel repeated, memories of what he'd heard about the 'Demon of Fear' back in his old day as Angelus instantly springing to mind; the man might not have turned up that often, but he had definitely created a _very_ dangerous reputation for himself despite that. "As in, the Demon of Fear?"

"Oh," the demon in question replied, smirking slightly as he looked at the two men before him, "I'm so much more than that now."

Cole didn't even hesitate to try and attack, raising his hand to try and generate an energy ball to hurl it at Barbas, only to stare at his hand in horror when nothing happened.

"Oh," Barbas said, looking at Cole with a nonchalant smile as he raised his hand in a similar motion to Cole's recent action, a blue energy ball appearing in his hand before he held it out to Cole as though he was handing a baseball back to a schoolboy, "looking for this?"

Cole barely had time to glance at his hand in horror before Barbas threw the energy ball at his chest, Angel barely managing to yank Cole to the side so that the resulting energy ball simply burned Cole's arm rather than hitting him in the chest like it would have originally. The blast twisted Cole's arm in a manner that made it clear the arm had been broken by the blow, but Cole himself was still in fairly good health; anything else could wait.

"Aww..." Barbas said, looking at Angel with an expression that reminded the vampire of an offended child as he smirked at him. "You _had_ to ruin my chance to really test these powers, didn't you?"

"Ask anyone; that's kind of what I do here," Angel retorted, narrowing his eyes as he stood up, laying Cole down behind a nearby chair as he glared at Barbas. "And on that topic, what the _hell_ did you do to Cole?"

"Oh, simple enough; you _started_ to drain _some_ of his powers, and I just intercepted the magic just enough to allow myself to draw out the rest of them," Barbas said, shrugging slightly slightly as he held up his hands to flex his fingers. "Very cool powers I have to say; I can hardly _wait_ until I have full control over them."

" _Not_ happening," Angel said, clenching his fists as he looked at Barbas; the odds of him successfully taking on a demon of Barbas's calibre would have been slim in a straight fight even under normal circumstances, but if he could just take the demon by surprise he _might_ have a chance.

"Oh, and who's going to stop me?" Barbas asked, smiling dismissively at the vampire. "You? A vampire who got lucky enough to become a bit more human?"

"I do what I can," Angel countered, charging forward with one fist outstretched-

Only for his eyes to widen when a blast of lightning erupted from his clenched fist, striking Barbas in the chest and sending him flying back into the wall behind him.

"What the _hell_...?" Angel muttered, looking at his fist in shock.

He'd _never_ had that kind of power before...

Then he realised what had happened; when he'd started drinking from Cole, even if Barbas had intercepted the _rest_ of Cole's powers before Angel could take them himself, he had still taken a few sips of Cole's blood...

"Huh," he said, smiling over at Barbas with a slight smile. "Looks like the odds just became a little more even, huh?"

"Hardly," Barbas said, a grim smirk on his face as he got to his feet, a brief wince at the pain of Angel's last attack pushed aside in favour of his usual self-confidence. "You may have a few tricks, but I still got the majority of them."

"Do you want to test that theory?" Angel countered, shifting into a combat stance as he stared at Barbas.

"Hardly," Barbas said, shaking his head with another smug smile at the vampire. "Why would I need to prove anything to you? You may have caused a slight... complication... in my plans to take Mr Turner's powers, but you're still nothing significant... just like you'll _never_ be worth anything compared to-"

Before Barbas could finish that sentence- he might have some doubts about whether he was worthy of Paige's love, but he'd be _damned_ if he'd let Barbas play him like that after everything he'd done as Angelus _without_ the benefit of powers-, Angel lashed out with his other hand, surprising even himself when he generated a long line of white energy that reminded him of a whip as it wrapped rapidly around Barbas's body.

"You want to talk about being 'worthy', Barbas?" Angel countered, walking up to glare at the temporarily-immobilised demon. "How about being the supposedly unbeatable guy who got his head handed to him by a 'simple' vampire?"

Before Barbas could respond verbally, Angel had punched the Demon of Fear in the face, sending him backwards so rapidly that the back of his skull hit the wall with a resounding crack.

Attempting to follow up the attack, Angel lashed out with one hand for Barbas's chest- noting the hand that he was attacking with had changed into a small blade as he thrust out with it-, only for Barbas to raise a hand and hurl him backwards with an energy ball before he even realised that Barbas was generating the attack in question.

"Not bad," Barbas said, smirking briefly at Angel as he got back to his feet, flexing his shoulders as he smirked at the vampire. "I'd stick around, but I've got... other things to do right now."

With that, Barbas turned around and vanished in a brief golden glow, leaving Angel to stare grimly between the area where Barbas had been standing and the place where Cole lay injured on the ground.

 _Crap_ , he thought reflectively to himself.

He might have managed to take a few of Cole's powers for himself, but he knew that he was kidding himself if he thought that what he had was anything _like_ enough to stop Barbas...

Which meant that, if they were going to deal with this problem, he'd have to let the sisters know just _how_ badly he'd screwed up.


	17. The Power of Fear

"Barbas?" Phoebe said, looking at Angel in frustration after he'd explained the current situation to them, Cole currently resting on the sofa while trying to stop his injured arm being jostled about too much. "You _had_ to go for the big leagues, didn't you? You couldn't have brought back Shax or Andras or someone we could actually _vanquish_?"

"Look, I was just trying to help Cole; is it _my_ fault-?" Angel began.

"Oh yeah, the two _demons_ just _accidentally_ brought back potentially the single most powerful demon we've ever fought?" Phoebe interjected, glaring at Angel as she walked up to stand in front of him, glaring at the vampire. "Seriously, what _is_ this; Alcathla wasn't enough-?"

" _DON'T_ ," Paige cut in, stepping in between Phoebe and Angel to glare at her sister. "You even _think_ about bringing up Alcathla again, and we're going to have to see who's got the best fighting style; got that?"

"Look, can we just clam down now?" Piper asked, stepping forward to stand beside her sisters, looking resolutely between the two. "We're not going to get anything done by arguing right now; the best thing we can do is figure out what we can do to stop Barbas before he gets a clear idea of what he's dealing with right now."

"Look at this way," Cole muttered as he stood up, wincing at the pain in his arm as he looked around at the sisters, "at least Angel managed to get _some_ of my powers before Barbas did. They might not be enough to let him fight the guy on an even level, but he's still not packing everything I had..."

"Unfortunately, we can't exactly forget that Barbas isn't exactly a slouch in the powers department either," Angel said, looking pointedly over at Cole even as Paige walked over to lay her hand against Cole's injured arm, the golden glow of her healing power spreading from her to envelop his injury. "His own powers could be enough to compensate for what I stopped him getting, and I don't even know _what_ I got out of this or how long it'll last..."

"Worry about that later, OK?" Paige said, stepping back from Cole as she turned to look at Angel, the former Belthazor wincing slightly as he tested his arm; it was evidently still a little stiff- Paige would be the first to admit that her healing abilities still needed some practise-, but it was in better shape than it had been. "Right now, we need to deal with whatever powers Barbas has _now_ ; anything you might have taken yourself we can figure out later."

"Yeah, _after_ we've somehow managed to stop a guy we couldn't vanquish when he _didn't_ have all these powers; do you even _realise_ how much trouble your boyfriend's landed us in right now?" Phoebe asked, walking over to poke Paige sharply in the chest with her finger. "Seriously, we're up against someone who-"

"OK, it's bad, I get it, but we don't need a lecture right now; we've got to figure out how to _handle_ this whole mess!" Paige yelled back at her sister.

"Guys?" Leo said, looking urgently between his wife and sisters-in-law. "Look, we really should just give Angel a break; he was trying to do the right thing, and it's not like anyone could have _predicted_ that this was going to happen-"

"Oh yeah, because walking off to help the guy with the nearly unlimited set of powers is _really_ a smart move for a vampire who spent the last couple of decades doing nothing but-" Phoebe began.

" _Don't_ go there, OK?" Paige said, stepping forward to grab Phoebe's top and yank her sister close to her, her eyes fixed on Phoebe's as she spoke. "Angel maybe could have handled his situation back then better then he did, but when _you're_ in a position where you have to cope with over a _century_ of grief and guilt over the memories of committing murders like he was, _then_ you can start criticising how he dealt with things back _then_ ; right now, you don't have _any_ idea what it was like being him, so don't act like you do. Got me?"

"Uh... got it?" Phoebe said at last, clearly slightly uncertain how to properly react to her sister's outburst.

"Right," Cole said, flexing his newly-healed arm experimentally as he looked between the sisters, "we'd better get started; we need some kind of strategy-"

"'We'?" Piper asked as she looked over at him.

"Whatever you might think about me, right now you need me," Cole responded simply. "I'm the only one who knows how my powers work and how he might use them; anything I can give you has to be helpful."

Exchanging glances with each other for a moment, Leo and Angel nodded in agreement as they turned back to look at the sisters.

"He's got a good point," Angel confirmed. "Even if I've got _some_ of Barbas's powers, it's not going to be enough to seriously handicap him; we need to think about what he's going to do now that Cole's powers have been added to his own."

"Get even; what else?" Phoebe said briefly.

"And the reason he hasn't done that already _is_?" Angel pointed out indicating the mansion around them. "We aren't exactly _ready_ for him to attack us, after all..."

"I have to admit, I'm a little worried about that myself," Cole admitted.

"Funny, that didn't occur to me as something to worry about," Piper said.

"Speaking as the guy who used to _be_ your enemy, when we don't attack you instantly, you should know that that's only because we've got something worse in mind," Angel pointed out. "With Cole's power level, it wouldn't take much effort for Barbas to establish himself as the new Source to mount an attack against us that we can't counter effectively; stopping him from gathering his power and consolidating his followers has to be a priority."

"Right then," Paige said as she turned to look at her sisters, "first step is to think about how you took Barbas out last time and work our way up from there; how'd you vanquish him before?"

"Yeah, that's the thing..." Phoebe said, suddenly exchanging awkward glances with Piper. "We've never actually _vanquished_ him; just neutralised him."

"And if we're being honest, _we_ didn't even do that ourselves," Piper said, looking slightly uncomfortably at Paige. "Prue did."

For a moment, Angel and Paige just exchanged awkward glances at each other, this fresh reminder of the history that the other four people in the room shared that could never include them, before the moment passed and the conversation had to continue.

"Well..." Paige said, looking awkwardly at her family, "maybe... we can just do whatever Prue did to banish him last time?"

"It won't work," Phoebe said briefly.

"Prue didn't banish him with a spell," Leo clarified. "She banished him by conquering her fears."

"Well, conquering fears isn't going to vanquish him any more anyway," Cole said, shaking his head grimly. "Not with my powers inside of him."

"Look, can we just try and get this over with already?" Phoebe asked. "You pulled me away from my third date..."

Her voice trailed off as Angel shot a harsh glare at her, her voice trailing off awkwardly under the vampire's stare.

"We _don't_ have time to drag our personal lives into this," he said to the older witch. "I did what I thought was right; the fact that it fell apart due to circumstances I couldn't _possibly_ have predicted isn't important right now, and you _really_ shouldn't be going on about your _date_ at a time like this!"

"Let's... not focus on that right now, huh?" Cole said, looking uncomfortably between his friend and his ex-wife. "Right now, we need to get started on planning a strategy-"

"Correction; you and Leo are going to my office to work on a strategy somewhere safe," Angel cut in, holding up a hand as Cole tried to protest. "Don't start that; I get that you're more experienced at wielding magic in a fight than any of us, but you're operating without it for the first time in over a century, and that is _going_ to give you a handicap until you've adjusted that we can't afford to worry about right now."

"He's got a point," Paige pointed out. "I mean, if Cole's human, doesn't that make him an innocent, and doesn't that mean that we need to protect him now?"

"She's right," Phoebe said, her tone neutral as she looked at her ex-husband. "You should go. Please."

Sighing in resignation, Cole stood up and walked over to stand beside Leo, the Whitelighter placing a hand on his wrist before the two men vanished.

"OK," Phoebe said, sighing as she looked uncertainly at her sisters before her gaze settled on Angel. "Well, unless you've got any contacts we don't know about, we'll just have to try and figure out a way to vanquish Barbas on our own."

"I'll contact Doyle; he might know something we can use to figure out a new angle of attack," Angel said, standing up and indicating the phone.

"It's worth a shot, anyway," Piper said with a brief nod before turning back to her sisters as the vampire picked up the phone and walked out of the room. "As for us, maybe we should use the crystal cage like we did with The Source; if he's got all the same powers-"

"That _could_ work, but that still leaves us with the problem of how to _get_ him into the cage in the first place," Paige pointed out. "He doesn't exactly sound like he's stupid, after all."

"Stupid, no; serious anger issues, yes," Phoebe pointed out. "All we have to do is remind him of how much he hates us and he should come running; I can modify the astral projection spell to bring him here."

"Alternatively, I could just orb him-" Paige began to suggest.

"You've never tried to orb someone that kind of distance, and then there's the issue that you don't know what he looks like; if you can't picture him clearly, you might orb an innocent here by accident," Piper pointed out even as she looked apologetically at Paige; after all the training that Paige had gone through with Angel, it couldn't be easy for her to learn that none of that could contribute something to the current situation.

"Besides," Phoebe added solemnly, "Barbas can't hurt me any more; I've already overcome my deepest fear since the last time he attacked."

"What was your fear?" Paige asked, looking curiously at her older sister.

"Losing a sister," Phoebe replied simply, leaving Paige and Angel to look uncomfortably at each other once again.

"I'll just... make that call," Angel said, picking up the phone and heading out of the room as he dialled Doyle's number, leaving Paige to look awkwardly at the floor as Phoebe turned the Book of Shadows to study the spell she needed.

There were definitely times when his old solo lifestyle had its advantages; trying to be human was so... _complicated_ at times...

* * *

  
A few minutes later, the three sisters had positioned themselves in the attic, Piper and Paige setting up the crystals in the necessary formation to establish the crystal cage while Phoebe sat in the middle of a small circle of candles near the window. Angel simply stood off to the side of the room and watched them prepare, even as he remained ready to go into action if the need arose; if the crystal cage didn't work on Barbas, his inexperience in dealing with Angel could provide them with an important edge if things went out of control.

Even as Angel was prepared for battle, however, a part of him couldn't help but wonder if this was going to be enough; he had a basic idea of what he could do with his powers in a fight, but would it be enough against whatever Barbas had to throw at him...?

He didn't know.

Even worse, he wasn't sure if he was anywhere _close_ to being prepared to face Barbas; no matter what kind of power level Barbas possessed, the demon's natural abilities on his own were definitely not something that could be taken lightly...

"Incoming," Phoebe said, standing up inside her circle of candles and hurrying over to stand next to Paige and Piper, pushing thoughts of his ability to cope with whatever was coming up out of Angel's mind.

Whatever his doubts, he was here now, and he'd just have to deal with whatever Barbas had to throw at him when it was thrown at him and hope that his own experience would be enough to offset Barbas's power level.

No sooner had Phoebe assumed her position alongside her sisters than the other two Halliwells than Barbas appeared in the centre of the room, looking around at the sisters with that same smug half-smile that seemed to be perpetually attached to his face, looking at the rest of the people in the room as though his plan to murder everyone around him was somehow funny and everyone else just didn't get the joke.

"Paige," Piper said, her gaze fixed anxiously on Barbas, ready to try and attack if he took action before they were ready to do so themselves.

"Got it!" Paige said, placing the crystal she was holding down on the ground, the white lightning of the crystal cage instantly appearing around Barbas, who could only look at it in surprise as the sisters began to chant.

"Prudence, Penelope, Patricia..." Phoebe began.

"...Melinda, Astrid, Helena..." Piper continued.

"...Laura and Grace!" Paige put in, before all three sisters began to speak simultaneously.

" _Halliwell_ _witches stand strong beside us;_

 _vanquish this evil from time and space_!"

For a moment, as Barbas screamed in pain in the heart of the circle, the wind whirling around the room as the sisters stared at the demon, the plan almost seemed like it was going to work; Barbas's body was briefly covered in white light before it burst into flames as they watched, only for him to remain standing there after the spell's effects had ceased (Angel briefly noted a slightly surprised expression on the other demon's face, which at least suggested that this had been as unexpected for him as it was for them, but that didn't exactly help much; they'd already guessed that Barbas would have as little idea about his new limits as they did).

"I guess you wanted me," he said, smirking at the four around him. "Well... now you have me."

Before any of them could say anything, Barbas raised his hands and the windows in the attic were suddenly replaced by solid brick, Barbas vanishing with a nonchalant smile that made it clear he'd done that to more than just the attic.

"And now... I've got you," Barbas's voice added, a smug tone to his voice that put the sisters uncomfortably in mind of Angelus; the casual confidence of a man who 'knew' he could win at any time.

" _Crap_..." Paige said, exchanging grim glances with her sisters. "We're in trouble?"

"Oh yeah," Angel said, walking over to study the wall, pressing his palms against them before he stepped back and launched a powerful punch, only to reel back clutching a bloody hand.

"Yeah..." he muttered, smiling grimly at his lover and her sisters, wincing as he tried to shift his injured bones back into position. "They're solid."

"OK," Piper said, looking apprehensively between her sisters, "look, we can't start thinking negatively, we need to check the rest of the house; maybe he missed something?"

* * *

  
"Well, the doors and our windows are all bricked over too," Phoebe said, walking into the main hallway to join her sisters and Angel, the group exchanging frustrated and anxious glances. "Looks like he _didn't_ miss anything..."

"Trust me, we're not trapped yet," Paige said, glancing resolutely at her surroundings. "There's still _one_ thing we haven't tried..."

"Paige, wait-!" Angel began, only for his girlfriend to turn into the white ball of white energy that signified her orbing and hurtle towards the nearest wall, only to start rapidly bouncing from wall to wall like a glowing white pinball before she flew into the still-developing nursery and returned to solid form, looking uncomfortably back at the other three as she got to her feet.

"On second thought..." she said sheepishly.

"I guess that rules out calling Leo for help, anyway," Angel said, spinning around to grab Piper's wrist as she raised her arms while facing a wall. "And I don't think we should try that; what if Barbas has set the walls up to throw anything we try to use against them back at us?"

"Point..." Piper said, glancing briefly at Angel's still-scarred knuckles as she lowered her arms in frustration. "Well, if we're stuck here, immediate priority is _not_ to panic; the only thing Barbas wants is for us to suffer, so we've still got some time before he tries to _kill_ us..."

"Yeah, that's a _great_ comfort; he won't kill us now because he wants to have _fun_..." Paige muttered, turning around from where she still stood in the nursery door, only for her posture to suddenly tense as though she'd seen something in the room. "Uh... guys?"

"Paige?" Angel asked, looking at his girlfriend with heightened concern. "Are you OK?"

"Don't you see it?" Paige asked, walking slowly into the room, a slightly apprehensive tone in her voice as she spoke. "The walls are moving in on me..."

Almost as soon as she'd spoken, Paige turned around to face the door of the nursery, only to suddenly stop as though something had appeared to block her exit.

"Help!" Paige yelled, looking at the door around her as though it was now closed. "Get me out of here!"

"She's claustrophobic?" Piper said, looking at Angel inquiringly.

"I don't know; it's not like I spent a lot of time asking her about her fears, you know!" Angel countered, before he turned his attention back to his now-hyperventilating girlfriend as she stared at the room before her, her back pressed against nothing. "Paige, it's not real; it's just a hallucination! You have to get-"

He blinked in shock as he suddenly saw what had just appeared on the floor in front of him; the small form of a brown-haired girl, dressed in a simple white dress.

"Oh God..." he whispered, his eyes widening as he realised who he was looking at. "Kathy?"

"What?" Piper said, Angel only just registering his friend's comments as he stared at the sight of his sister's small body, her small head turning to stare at him...

" _Ye killed me, Liam_ ," she said, her voice still possessing the Irish lilt that had long ago acclimatised out of his own accent over the years he'd spent in America.

"No..." Angel whispered, stepping back from the body as he shook his head weakly. "I didn't do it... it was Angelus, it wasn't _me_..."

" _Ye_ are _the demon, Liam_ ," Kathy said, her voice overwhelming the other voices around him. " _Ye killed me... ye killed our family...ye killed the_ village..."

"IT WASN'T ME!" Angel roared, spinning around to turn away from the body, Piper standing behind him as she stared in terror at her shoulder, Paige still apparently trapped in the nursery as Phoebe glared at something in front of her.

"It's not real..." Angel whispered, Kathy's voice fading from his ears even as he spoke. "It's not real... none of this is _real_... IT'S NOT _REAL_!"

Whether it was the loud voice he used as he finished his statement breaking through Barbas's influence, or simply a matter of the Charmed Ones' strength of will happening to come through at the same time, Angel's words appeared to have the desired effect; even as he spoke, Piper's hands moved as though to throw something off her shoulder, Phoebe already looking anxiously at her older sister even as Paige continued to stare at the room before her in horror.

"Ew, ew, _ew_..." Piper muttered, her eyes screwed shut in disgust as she stamped at something that nobody else could see, retreating back towards the wall as she moved.

"OK, people, time to get over our fears _right now_!" Phoebe yelled over at her eldest sister.

"Easy for you to say; you're not facing _killer spiders_!" Piper yelled back at her.

"You're not facing them either, Piper; just _hold it together_!" Angel yelled urgently at the oldest surviving Halliwell. For a moment Piper did nothing but stare shakily at something on her left shoulder, but then she reached up and brushed her shoulder with her right hand, following the motion by stamping down on the ground with her right foot, her heart rate subsequently returning to normal.

"Nice job," Angel said, nodding in approval at Piper as she opened her eyes to take in her surroundings. Noting the absence of whatever had been 'attacking' her, Piper smiled briefly at the vampire before the three of them turned their attention to Paige, who was still staring in terror at apparently nothing.

"Paige," Piper said, her voice reflecting a surprisingly controlled tone given her own earlier fear, "it's all in your head. Don't be afraid; you're going to be OK."

"I'm not afraid..." Paige said, her voice trembling even as she seemed to finally register her sisters' words.

"You're going to be OK," Angel repeated, his gaze fixed on Paige's back, hoping that she could register his words even if she couldn't see him.

"I'm not afraid..." she continued, showing no other sign that she had heard what the others were saying to her. "I'm not afraid... I'm not afraid... I'm _not_ afraid... _I'm not afraid_!"

As Paige's breathing finally returned to normal, she stood in silence in the room for a few moments, before she turned around to look at the three others in the house with a slightly strained smile as the only indication of what she'd just gone through.

"I did it," she said.

"Yeah... you did," Angel replied, walking over to pull his girlfriend into a comforting hug as he kissed the top of her head. "Great job, Paige."

"Yeah... too bad there's no _way_ that's all he's got to throw at us," Piper muttered, glancing apprehensively at the house around them. "We need a plan, and we need it _soon_..."


	18. The Perils of Power

"OK, if it's a plan we need, maybe we could try and... strip his powers?" Paige asked, looking curiously at her sisters. "Draining them like Angel tried to do might not have worked, but if we took them _completely_ out of their 'owner'-"

"I don't think that'll solve the problem," Piper interjected, looking at Paige with a solemn expression. "If Angel's attempt confirmed anything, it's that any powers we take out of Cole are going to have to find a new host; they're not just going to disappear that easily..."

Piper didn't even need to finish her sentence to help Angel and Paige realise what she was about to suggest.

" _No_ ," Angel said, glaring resolutely at the sisters. "We are _not_ giving them back to Cole."

"Look, I don't exactly like it either, but he's the only person we know of who can control those powers and _won't_ use them to instantly kill us," Piper pointed out.

"Besides, they're his powers anyway-" Phoebe began.

"And that means we have to _automatically_ give them back to him when things get tricky?" Paige asked, looking critically at her sister. "Look, we need to at least _try_ and see if there's a way we can get those powers out of Barbas without sending them back into Cole; maybe Angel and I can figure something out?"

After a moment's thought, Piper sighed in resignation at the intense stare on Paige's face; regardless of her own thoughts about the practicality of the matter, it was clear that her youngest sister and oldest (Albeit only potential at this point) brother-in-law weren't going to back down on this particular issue.

"OK, you two see what you can find on that front; Phoebe and I'll prepare the potion if we're left with the worst-case-scenario resolution option," she said, before she turned around and walked out of the room, the other three following her just in time to see Leo appear in front of them, swaying slightly as though he'd just been through some difficult physical effort.

"Leo?" Piper asked, looking anxiously at her husband. "What happened?"

"Barbas," Leo replied, walking grimly over to the sisters. "He attacked us."

"What?" Phoebe asked, looking anxiously at Leo. "Where?"

"Downstairs," Leo replied. "I orbed in with Cole, and the windows bricked over."

"You left him down there?" Piper asked, looking in slight frustration at her husband.

"Yeah, I came up for help," Leo explained. "Besides, Cole knows Barbas' powers-"

"Exactly," Angel suddenly interrupted, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Leo. "Cole knows everything that Barbas is capable of because _he_ was capable of it... which means that anyone _else_ who knows about Cole's powers knows that at least _one_ of them includes a shape-shifting power with one _obvious_ weakness."

"Huh?" Phoebe said, looking over at Angel in confusion. "Look, Angel, if you're trying to make a point-"

Before Phoebe could finish her sentence, Angel lashed out with a powerful punch that struck Leo directly in the nose, the sisters' yells of rage and shock quickly ceasing when 'Leo' shimmered in front of them and was almost automatically replaced by Barbas, clutching his now-bleeding nose- black blood coming from it rather than the human red- as he glared at his vampire enemy.

"He can change his shape, but he can't change his _scent_ ," Angel clarified, looking over at the sisters' stunned expressions with a grim nod before he turned his attention back to Barbas, thrusting one hand forward as he launched a blast of lightning at the demon of fear.

While the surprise nature of the attack was probably the main reason it was so effective- Angel wasn't about to kid himself that he could beat Barbas in a contest of raw power-, it didn't stop the Charmed Ones following up Angel's advantage. Piper almost automatically hit Barbas with her explosive power, causing him to disperse and recorporealise just in time to be met by a kick to the face from Phoebe, followed by Paige orbing a nearby vase over to hit him in the head.

Practically roaring in rage at the assault, Barbas suddenly reached out and grabbed Angel by the head, his eyes suddenly locking onto the vampire's own as a short, sudden burst of energy flared between the men and Angel's eyes widened in horror.

"No..." he said, looking upwards at something none of the sisters could see, although the joyful smirk on Barbas's face made it clear that he was enjoying whatever he was making Angel experience. "No... Paige, run... it's Angelus... it's not me... he's in control... he's going to _kill you_..."

"NO!" Paige yelled, reaching out to try and yank Angel away from Barbas, hoping that the end of the demon's current physical contact would end whatever nightmare he was forcing Angel to witness, only to pull her hand back when she came in contact with some kind of protective shield; judging by the smirk on Barbas's face as he glanced at her, he was deliberately generating the field to prevent her helping Angel.

"Too late," Barbas chuckled, smirking at Paige even as his hands remained on Angel's head, fear and terror with hints of rage competing on Angel's face for dominance. "You can't save him... all you can do is watch him suffer... watch him experience his worst nightmares-"

" _NO_!" Paige yelled, thrusting her hands forward once more as she focused all of her power on a last desperate attempt to free the man she loved. As she watched, Angel turned into the familiar white orbs of her orbing power and vanished from Barbas's grasp, returning to solid form as he slumped against the wall behind him.

Barbas was only caught off-balance by a moment from the sudden loss of his opponent, but that was enough for Piper to flick her wrists at Barbas, causing him to temporarily collapse into black dust as Paige hurried over to crouch down beside Angel.

"Come on, Angel..." she said, anxiously examining her boyfriend for any signs of injury as he looked back at her, his expression dazed and unfocused; clearly whatever Barbas had shown him had shaken him considerably. "You can do this; just stay _focused_..."

"Paige...?" Angel whispered, his voice so low she almost couldn't hear it. "But... I killed you..."

"No, you _didn't_ , Angel; Barbas just made you _think_ you'd attacked me," Paige said to him, trying to smile comfortingly at her boyfriend. "You haven't hurt a soul since... well, OK, you hurt _some_ people back when you lost your soul, but that wasn't _you_ -"

"No..." Angel said, his eyes suddenly narrowing as they focused on something just behind Paige. "Not again... never..."

"Uh... Angel?" Paige asked, looking apprehensively at her boyfriend. "What are you-?"

" _Never again_!" Angel roared, pushing Paige to the side and lunging forwards, grabbing the now-recorporealised Barbas just in time to plunge his fangs into the demon of fear's neck before he could react to the vampire's latest attack. The Halliwells could only watch as Angel began to nosily swallow down Barbas's blood, the fear demon straining against the vampire's grip even as Angel's superior physical strength proved to be too much for Barba before a strange dark blue glow began to emit from the wound on the demon's neck, the glow seemingly growing more intense before it began to spread around Angel's body.

"Uh oh..." Phoebe said, swallowing anxiously as she took in the sight before her; even the obvious damage this attack was doing to Barbas didn't change the fact that nobody present could comfortably believe that the glow around Angel was a 'good' thing.

"Angel?" Paige said, trying to contain her apprehension as she looked at her boyfriend. "I think you've done it; you can stop now..."

For a moment, as Angel released his death-grip on Barbas, Paige allowed herself a brief moment of relief, but as the vampire dropped Barbas's dazed body and turned to look at her, his eyes wide with a raw ferocity that almost scared Paige more than the cold contempt Angelus had always directed at her, and she had a strong feeling that things had just become worse.

"Stop?" Angel repeated, almost sounding like he was on the verge of hysterics as he looked at her. "I can't stop _now_ ; I'm barely even getting _started_! Do you even _realise_ the _power_ I'm packing now-?"

"OK, look, we all like a bit of power, but you _know_ you don't want to do-" Paige began.

"Do what?" Angel asked, a feral grin on his face as he raised one hand and an energy ball appeared in his palm. "Do _this_?"

Before any of them could react, Angel had turned around and thrown the ball in question at Barbas, the demon barely having time to scream before he collapsed into flames and dust, the brick walls that had been blocking the mansion's windows vanishing even as the sisters continued to stare apprehensively at Angel.

"Right..." Piper said, trying to present a calm appearance by keeping her hands spread to her sides (Raising them might give Angel the impression she wanted to be ready to attack him, and if what they thought had happened had actually taken place anything that didn't involve provoking the vampire right now was probably the smart thing to do). "Well, thanks for dealing with that particular problem, Angel; now, let's all just calm down and-"

"Calm?" Angel practically spat as he looked at her incredulously. " _Calm_? I am calm; _this_ is me _not_ calm!"

Before anyone could react, Angel had vanished in a violent crack that shook the air around where he had been standing- what kind of power he'd used to create an effect like that, none of the sisters knew or were that keen to find out-, leaving the three Halliwells to look apprehensively at each other.

"Uh... don't take this as an extension of my Angel-related issues, but am I the only one who's _really_ not that encouraged by what just happened?" Phoebe asked.

"You can say that-" Paige began, before her phone began to ring, a quick glance at the screen all that Paige needed to confirm the caller's identity.

"Hi Doyle," she said, allowing herself to be briefly relieved at this confirmation that their new friend was all right- Barbas probably hadn't considered it worth going after someone who was still more of an 'outsider' to the group than a permanent member; Doyle _had_ only been with them for a few weeks and he'd spent most of those with Angel setting up the agency's offices anyway- before she turned her attention to their more pressing matters. "Look, if this is about a vision, we don't really have the time-"

" _Angel's goin' psycho in the Underworld wi' a bunch of demonic powers that'll burn him out an' destroy him if he keeps 'em for too long; ye_ make _time for a crisis like that_!" Doyle's Irish accent interjected.

"...And _that_ was what I was going to tell you we were dealing with if it was about anything else," Paige said, raising her eyebrows slightly as she looked at her sisters before she turned her attention back to the current call. "Just let us get things together here, and we'll get on with it as soon as possible, OK?"

" _Check_ ," Doyle said, not bothering to ask if they could pick him up; in the current magically-triggered crisis, he couldn't really contribute much to any potential resolution. " _And Paigie..._ hurry."

"Leo!" Piper called out as her youngest sister put her phone back into her pocket, the Whitelighter and Cole appearing beside them instantly.

"Where's-?" Cole began.

"OK, good news is that Barbas is vanquished, but the _bad_ news is that Angel killed him by drinking his blood and taking Barbas's powers into _himself_ ," Paige explained, quickly trying to provide her brother-in-law and somewhat-uncertain-ally with the essential facts of the situation. "Bad news is that he's gone whacko and is- according to a vision Doyle just called us about- unleashing a wave of hurt on the underworld; if we don't get him back to normal soon, I _really_ don't want to know what's going to happen to him."

"Tell me about it; Angel might be packing Cole's powers, but given his reaction to having them I think it's safe to say that he's _not_ coping with them that well," Piper added, her expression grim as she looked over at the former Belthazor. "Look, we're doing what we can to try and figure out a way to get those powers out _without_ sending them back to you, but-"

"I'll take them," Cole said.

"What?" Paige said, looking at Cole in surprise, only to quickly school her expression when she realised how he might interpret it incorrectly. "I mean, you told us yourself that you're _afraid_ of your powers-"

"But I can _handle_ them," Cole responded simply. "Angel can't."

For a moment, the sisters looked uncertainly at Cole, contemplating what he'd just said to them, until Paige finally spoke.

"You sure about that?" she asked, looking slightly apprehensively at her former brother-in-law. "I mean, right now you're just human; if Angel snapped after getting all those powers when he's... well, he's a lot more _durable_ than you are-"

"He might be physically stronger, but he's also a vampire; his soul might be able to exist because it's been 'grafted' onto him by the same process that allows his demon to animate him, but his body can't _contain_ magic for long because he has no life energy to sustain it," Cole clarified. "From what you've told me about how he's coping, at the moment the powers he took from Barbas are basically trying to ensure that Angel retains them by making him use them all at once so that they've got enough energy to sustain themselves without any life-force to draw on, but they can't sustain themselves that way for long before they cause Angel to burn out; if I take them back, my body will provide them with enough energy to sustain themselves without me having to use them."

Noting Phoebe's sceptical expression, Cole sighed. "I'm not saying I won't be _tempted_ to use them- having those kind of powers isn't exactly something I can ignore-, but I'll at least be able to _choose_ to use them or not; right now, for Angel, he _has_ to use my powers or they'll destroy his body trying to generate enough energy to sustain themselves."

After a few moments of silent staring between the two, Phoebe sighed.

"Well... all right," she said, turning to face Paige as she held up a warning hand. "Just to stop you getting any ideas, I'm still not wild about this whole... _thing_... with you and Angel, but that doesn't mean I want him _dead_ ; after all the help he's given us, we're not going to kill someone who isn't actually doing anything wrong."

* * *

  
Cole didn't bother to respond to the potential threat in Phoebe's words; right now, all that mattered to him was helping his friend.

"Got the potion?" he asked, looking over at Paige.

"It's just upstairs," Paige replied, indicating the attic. "I was going to give it to you earlier- basically it was meant to do completely what Angel tried to do partially without the bit with someone else getting them; I figured that you couldn't hurt anyone if you didn't _have_ your powers-, but... well, then this whole thing with Angel and Barbas happened..."

She trailed off as a thought occurred to her. "Hold on; if this potion's going to strip Angel of Cole's powers, does that mean-?"

"It won't do anything to any abilities Angel himself possessed already, Paige, and it _definitely_ won't affect his soul," Leo interjected, shaking his head in understanding. "Any potion you developed to take away Cole's powers would focus on taking away anything that requires Angel's body to generate and manipulate magic; as a vampire his strength and other abilities are a natural part of him, and the curse is just bonded to him rather than actually providing him with anything he can use offensively."

"Well, that's something..." Paige said, smiling gratefully at Leo before she turned her attention back to the matter at hand, hurrying up the stairs to the attic before she came back down, a small bottle containing what Cole presumed was the power-stripping potion in her hand.

"OK, let's go," Phoebe said, nodding resolutely at Leo and Paige. As Paige took her sisters' hands, Leo placed a hand on Cole's shoulder...

* * *

  
After the usual slight discomfort involved in orbing- a century as a demon wasn't something you could get over that quickly; a part of Cole's nature would _never_ feel comfortable travelling that way-, Cole found himself standing in an underground rock cavern, Angel hurling several fireballs at various low-level demons around him.

"Should I-?" Paige asked, raising the bottle in her hand.

"Let him finish," Cole said simply, shaking his head at her.

He might be the most likely host for the powers since he'd possessed them originally, but that didn't mean he wanted to make any assumptions with other demons in the room; the last thing they wanted was a repeat of that whole mess with Barbas if another demon ended up taking on those powers rather than him.

Besides, as much as he wanted to help his friend before he took too much damage from the powers he was currently controlling, anything that thinned the demon population to any degree couldn't hurt...

* * *

  
"AAARRRGGGHHH!" Angel roared, thrusting one hand violently forward as he launched a series of lightning bolts that linked the various demons gathered before him together for a few brief moments before they exploded, leaving small piles of ash.

The sisters barely had time to shift into a combat stance as Angel spun around to face the new arrivals, his eyes narrowing in some twisted form of recognition as he registered their presence.

" _You_!" he yelled, his arms spread as fireballs appeared in the palms of his hands.

"OK, you recognise us; that's... good," Piper said, trying to smile reassuringly at the vampire despite his enraged expression. "Look, Angel, I get that you've got a _lot_ going on right now, but we're here to help you; just-"

" _NO_!" Angel roared, hurling both energy balls towards the sisters with such force that they reduced most of the stone behind them to rubble as the sisters dived out of the way.

" _You did this to me_!" the vampire roared, charging forward and grabbing Phoebe by her top as he slammed her against the wall, his eyes a deep, feral red as he glared at the seer with a hatred even Angelus had never shown in his confrontations with Paige. " _Your own FUCKING paranoia left THIS as the only way I could help my FRIEND! I'm LOSING IT because of YOU_!"

"OK..." Phoebe grunted, straining slightly against the tight grip on her neck. "Point... taken... but..."

" _THERE IS NO 'POINT'; you're just going to CREATE what you're afraid of_!" Angel yelled, his grip tightening around her throat.

"Angel, _STOP_ -!" Paige began, only for Angel to wave one arm and send her and Piper back a few feet.

" _THERE WILL BE NO MERCY_!" the clearly-enraged vampire roared, his gaze still fixed on Phoebe. " _You hurt my FRIEND_!"

Phoebe didn't know how long Angel was going to be content with simply strangling her before he 'remembered' that he could use his recently-acquired magic against her as well, but she wasn't going to give him the chance to remember that. Taking advantage of Angel's complete focus on her face, Phoebe rammed her knee into his groin- fortunately, Angel's now-enhanced magic didn't extend to increasing his ability to cope with physical attacks-, pushing herself away from the vampire as he staggered back,

Glancing over urgently at her sister, Phoebe didn't even need to say a word before Paige raised the hand holding her previously-developed potion and launched a blue-white blur of light for Angel's mouth...

* * *

  
' _Create what you're afraid of'?_ Cole thought to himself, looking uncertainly at Angel. _What did he mean by that_...?

Before he could think on Angel's strange comment in more depth, the light of Paige's potion struck Angel's lips, sending the vampire reeling back as the power that had once been Cole's was forced out of his body, the energy of his temporary magic departing his body as it almost instantly flew towards its original owner.

As Cole took a deep breath, he felt the return of his old demon powers, flowing into all the parts of his body and soul that they seemed to occupy, the weight of his burden once again returned to him, erecting a potentially unassailable barrier between himself and the woman he loved...

 _But Angel's safe_ , he reminded himself, looking over at where the vampire was dazedly getting back to his feet, Paige looking at him with unrestrained relief and gratitude.

Despite what he'd had to sacrifice for that to happen, Cole knew that he would do it again if he had to.

It was like this one Bible quote he'd read somewhere once; "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".

Cole would have given _up_ his powers for Phoebe... but, at the same time, he'd take them _back_ if it would save Angel.

Phoebe was the only woman he'd ever loved, while Angel was the first person he'd ever met who could really come even close to understanding him and what motivated him; even if Phoebe _could_ accept him when he was human again, Cole wasn't sure he could live with himself if he'd achieved that by destroying the first real friend he'd ever had.

"It's done," he said, nodding briefly at the sisters before he shimmered back to his penthouse apartment, taking a deep breath as he stared grimly at his hands.

This wasn't something he'd wanted, and he was still no closer to finding a safe way of disposing of these new powers before they hurt someone, but he'd deal with this.

He had to...

* * *

  
"So," Piper asked as she sat down next to Leo, Paige, Angel and Doyle in their usual 'family booth' at P3 the following night, her eyes fixed on her now-almost-fully-recovered vampire almost-brother-in-law, "how're you feeling?"

"About what you'd expect after what I went through, really," Angel replied, looking slightly solemnly at his beer- it might take more to get him drunk than it would a human, but beer was at least more tolerable than some foods he might have to consume- before he took a sip. "I mean, I'm grateful that I didn't kill anyone who didn't deserve it- I still had enough control to stop myself going _that_ far-, but what I said..."

He trailed off, looking awkwardly over at Piper in contemplation for a moment before he continued. "Look, I know she's your sister, but that doesn't change the facts; what happened to me just made me say how I felt about the... current situation... rather than making me say anything I _didn't_ believe."

Looking over at where the object of their discussion was currently having drinks with her latest date, Piper had to admit that she could see where Angel was coming from; as much as she felt that she had to automatically side with her sister as far as Phoebe's fears about Cole's new powers were concerned, Angel's comment about them creating what they were afraid of _was_ something to be concerned about...

"I know what you mean, Angel," she said at last, taking another sip of her drink before she looked back at the vampire. "But... well, there's not exactly much we _can_ do, when I think about it. Cole can't give up his powers, there's no telling what kind of control he has over what he can do right now, and even if she'd _let_ herself feel something for him again, Phoebe's just too scared- even if she won't admit to being _scared_ \- about what he could do to her without knowing he's doing it..."

"Always sucks when you're dealing with something you don't get," Doyle said, shaking his head slightly as he swallowed down his own beer. "I mean, I might only get the visions, but I didn't even know what _those_ were about half the time; took seeing a newspaper article about a rather vivid one I'd had the previous night to confirm that I was actually seein' stuff that was happening rather than just havin' coincidentally bad dreams..."

After a few moments of silent contemplation, Paige broke the silence with a frustrated groan.

"It's moments like this that make you realise why we can't use magic for personal gain," she said reflectively. "When we get too used to it solving all our problems, it makes it harder to cope when we find ourselves dealing with something that we _can't_ solve even with magic..."

As much as Angel appreciated Paige's moment of personal reflection and examination, it didn't change the facts of the situation they faced right now; the first person he'd met since the curse who really understood what it was like to be in his position was still in trouble, the only person remotely 'qualified' to help his friend was trying to separate herself from him in almost every way possible, and they had _no_ way of removing the main obstacle to the current situation reaching some kind of resolution without making things even _more_ complicated and possibly even dangerous...

There were definitely days where Angel reflected that it would have been easier if he'd turned down Whistler's original offer.


	19. When You Wish Upon a Demon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we have it; my spin on one of my personal favourite "Charmed" episodes, incorporating some elements from a certain Buffyverse plot as well...  
> For clarification purposes, this takes place after "A Witch in Time", but nothing after that has happened yet; Cole's still got issues about his powers, but he hasn't reached the point where he's actively trying to _kill_ himself yet.  
> In advance, I'll be skipping over a few scenes- such as Paige's first meeting with Alt-Piper and the full details of her encounter with Alt-Leo- because they're relatively unchanged from the original course of events; as always, I prefer to look at what changed rather than what didn't change, and Cole's scenes in this new reality are more obviously different from what they were originally (Mainly because it isn't his birthday yet)

As he sat in the bar where he had taken to drinking, Cole wondered how things had reached this point; barely a year ago, he'd been engaged to the most incredible woman he'd ever met, with a remarkable family willing to welcome him into their lives and a friendship he could never have anticipated, to say nothing of being _human_...

Now, here he was, drinking his sorrows away in a bar that he didn't even remember the name of, possessing virtually unlimited power but no real idea what he could do to keep said power under control, and the only person of the previously-mentioned group who was still talking to him was the vampire...

"Women trouble, huh?" the man sitting next to him said. For a moment, Cole thought about just continuing with his drink and ignoring the other man, but he couldn't exactly say that he had any better offers for how to spend his time right now.

"Could say that," he said, turning to look at the man in question; dressed in a smart yet casual suit, the other man looked like he worked in an office of some sort, but there was nothing about him to help Cole narrow that down further. "It's that obvious?"

"Just to a guy who's been there once or twice; in my experience, only women can screw a man up as badly as you are right now," the other man replied, shrugging nonchalantly before looking more sympathetically at Cole. "What happened?"

"My wife left me after a few months of marriage," Cole replied after a moment's pause; after all the times he'd unburdened himself to Angel, it couldn't exactly hurt to try and get a fresh perspective on the whole situation from someone else so long as he didn't give away any of the magic-related details about his situation. "I made a few bad decisions, things went a bit wrong, her sisters got in trouble..."

His voice trailed off as his mind registered what the rest of him was saying; even without mentioning the magic parts of the equation, some of the stuff he was talking about _was_ pretty personal. "Hold on, what the _hell_ am I telling you all this for; I don't even _know_ you..."

"Call me James, and don't worry about it; I've been told I have one of those faces," the man replied with a dismissive shrug, as though he thought the matter of his name was fairly unimportant as he looked sympathetically at Cole. "So, you screwed up and she can't get over it, huh?"

"In a nutshell," Cole said, shaking his head in frustration as he stared at his glass. "I get _where_ I went wrong, but I know that I'm _not_ going to do it again; she's just not giving me the chance to _show_ that I've changed, she'd rather keep me away from her without even _trying_ to understand how I'm trying to make up for it, even after everything we were to each other..."

"It's always rough when they don't get what you're going through," James replied. "It's not like we don't _try_ to do the right thing, but-"

"You know, there are times when I just... I wish that things could go back to the way they were _before_ it got so complicated, you know?" Cole said, slamming his glass on the table in frustration.

No sooner had those words left his lips than James's entire face suddenly changed, going from the relatively normal human face he'd possessed before and becoming something that put Cole in mind of someone who'd been caught in a fire of some sort, even as his eyes and face remained apparently relatively undamaged.

"Wish granted," 'James' said, his voice slightly hoarse and distorted.

Cole barely had time to register that he'd apparently just been speaking with a vengeance demon- something he'd known of by reputation without having actually encountered one before; he'd known he had issues, but he didn't know he was giving off _that_ many 'negative vibes'- before the entire world seemed to suddenly spin around him, light flashing around him as though the world suddenly couldn't decide if it was night or day...

* * *

  
Looking at her surroundings, Paige wondered if she'd overshot or something during her last orb (Just because Leo had never told her that something like that could happen didn't mean that it _couldn't_ ); she knew where she'd been aiming to go- she'd arranged to meet her sisters and Angel for a dinner date to discuss the agency's last case; they'd dealt with a purely human case of a stalking ex-boyfriend-, but she was equally sure that the back room of P3 definitely did _not_ look like this.

"Uh... guys?" she asked, looking apprehensively at her surroundings. "Who turned out the lights? And the heat?"

Swallowing apprehensively at the lack of a response, Paige reached out and cautiously opened the door in front of her, only for the door to literally fall to the floor as she opened it. For a moment Paige wondered if the hinges had been damaged in a previous demon-related attack, but then she took in the sight of the club that her sister had put so much work into reduced to what could best be described as a garbage dump, empty and discarded cardboard boxes and bits of paper scattered around her among a few fallen support beams from the roof, and thoughts of a fight were ruled out; whatever had happened here went _way_ beyond left-over damage from a simple physical scuffle at some point.

"Oh God..." she whispered, as her gaze fell on the shattered remains of the P3 sign, that should have been hanging outside the club, lying on the floor in front of her. "This can't be happening..."

Shaking her head, she looked up at the ceiling, shock and confusion being replaced by resolution; she needed information, and there was only one person she could think of who might be able to give it to her.

"Leo!" she called urgently, only to be met with no response from her Whitelighter brother-in-law. " _Leo_!"

A sudden movement in another part of the club briefly left Paige hopeful that the Whitelighter was responding, but Paige only had to turn around to confirm that the source of the movement was an apparently homeless man, in tattered clothing and several days' worth of stubble around his chin, who had been sleeping under a pile of newspapers.

"Uh... sorry if I woke you-" she began uncertainly (After what she'd endured with Angelus, it took more than somebody moving in an empty club to scare her).

"Who're you?" the bum said, his movements slightly jittery as he looked at her. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" Paige countered, only for the other man to cut off any further comments she might make by pulling a knife out of his pocket and brandishing it at her.

 _So much for talking_... Paige thought grimly, even as her body shifted into automatic at the sight of something she knew how to handle; orbing the knife away might be simpler, but this was just a _bit_ more fun (As well as giving her the chance to vent some of the stress she felt about this recent turn of events). As the man charged towards her, Paige grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the knife and stepped slightly to the side, yanking her opponent towards her as she rammed her knee upwards to strike him in the chest, following it up with a punch that sent him staggering back into the pile of newspapers and boxes that he'd crawled out of originally.

As soon as the fight was over, however, all Paige could do was reflect on her lack of progress; she still had no idea what had happened here, and the fact that it had happened long enough ago for that bum to feel like he had a 'claim' to this area showed that there was _definitely_ more happening here than she'd known originally...

" _Leo_!" she called out once again, her attention returning to her original goal of making contact with her family once again.

This final call was apparently whatever was responsible for recent events had been waiting for, as Leo appeared in the middle of the club's damaged floor, dressed in a grey hoodie and a thick green-and-grey jacket that gave him a more dishevelled appearance.

"Damn it, Leo!" Paige yelled as she walked over to him, putting questions of his attire to the side- he might just be trying a new look- in favour of the more immediate issue of getting answers. "Where the _Hell_ have you been?"

"Who are you?" Leo asked.

"Are you _kidding_?" Paige countered, only to lose her momentum at the obvious confusion on the Whitelighter's face.

"You're not kidding..." she groaned. "Leo, it's me, Paige, remember? Business partner/sister-in-law?"

"Look, I don't know who you are, lady, and I don't have time for games," Leo said, a bitter tone to his voice that Paige hadn't heard before. "All Hell is breaking loose out there, so-!"

"Have you lost your mind?" Paige asked, gesturing at the club around her. "Do you notice _anything_ different?"

As Leo looked around the club without any sign of recognition, a knot of fear began to twist in Paige's stomach at the obvious confusion on her brother-in-law's face.

If Leo not only didn't know her, but apparently didn't find _anything_ strange about the club's current condition...

What had happened here?

Where were Piper and Phoebe (God, right now she'd settle for knowing where Doyle was; at least his visions might help her find out where to go for answers even if he couldn't do any magic)?

And- almost more importantly to _her_ \- where was Angel...?

* * *

  
"What the _Hell_?" Cole asked, looking at himself in confusion; one minute he was drinking in a bar in a shirt and jeans, and now he was standing outside Halliwell Manor- which had suddenly had a black fence added to its exterior that he _knew_ hadn't been there last time he was there-, most of the enhanced senses he'd acquired along with his new powers having seemingly deserted him and the unnerving sensation that time had been passing while he wasn't aware of it...

"Ah, there you are," a voice said from behind him, Cole spinning around to see 'James' casually walking out from behind the car, now dressed in long dark robes with his face in the traditional burn-victim-esque appearance of a vengeance demon. "It took a while to track you down after that particular shift; the power that I had to banish from you when we were in transit to this reality sent you into a limbo for a few hours until everything straightened out-"

" _Who the_ Hell-?" Cole began, raising a hand to generate an energy ball- at least _that_ power was still intact- before 'James' waved a hand and the ball dispersed.

"Oh, but how rude of me not to introduce myself properly," the man said, smiling at Cole nonchalantly, as though the other demon hadn't just tried to attack him. "My name is Geminactemen, but you may call me 'Gemin'; everyone does in my line of work-"

"Which would be the _vengeance_ line, right?" Cole retorted, glaring back at the other man.

"You know of my group?" Gemin replied with a slightly pleased smile.

"I was the Source of All Evil for a few weeks; you think I _wouldn't_ take note of everything that might have posed a threat to me?" Cole countered.

"Good point," Gemin said, before he shrugged and indicated the manor before them. "Anyway, as you can see, you have your wish; things have been tweaked so that they're less complicated, the most obvious part of the shift being that you're now Belthazor once again rather than the mystical powerhouse you were before."

"Belthazor..." Cole repeated, looking at himself with a new surge of hopeful apprehension.

It wasn't a perfect shift- he'd have preferred it if he was human again; things had been _so_ much easier in his and Phoebe's lives without his demon side making things complicated-, but things _had_ been a lot simpler back then...

"I'd advise you to be careful, of course- you might not be a pushover, but it's still a bit easier to kill you now than it was before I got involved-, but basically you're here for the duration; I tied your existence in to this new reality so that it'll only revert back when you die- the sheer amount of power you were packing when I triggered this reality warp meant that you became the focus; normally we serve as the 'nexus point' of wish-created realities with our power centre until the wish has had time to become 'real'-, so you're pretty much sorted," Gemin said nonchalantly. "Enjoy your world."

" _Wait_ -!" Cole yelled, holding out a hand to try and halt the demon before James had vanished into thin air, leaving him standing alone outside the manor.

Looking at the imposing building in front of him, Cole only took a few moments to consider his options before he made his decision.

If he _was_ here for the duration... in a world where he didn't know _what_ had changed to leave him as Belthazor... he might as well check it out and see what he'd created for himself; vengeance demons might be bound to the letter of the wish, but that didn't mean 'Gemin' couldn't have worked in a few catches that he didn't know about yet...

Taking a deep breath- something about the fence around the mansion didn't exactly make him feel comfortable about what he'd find once he got inside there-, he walked across the street and up the driveway into the manor, trying to ignore the slightly unnerving sight of a more-than-likely-demon guard standing at the door; maybe it was some kind of golem or something the sisters had started using here for added protection...

Then he entered the manor and his eyes widened in confusion at the sight that greeted him; a small assemblage of beings who were obviously demons- what the hell was a _Fyral_ demon doing here with _Spike_ , of all people?- sitting around the main lounge, while the Seer- the supposed-to-have-been-vanquished-last-year _Seer_ \- sat drinking tea and looking around in a contemplative manner.

"What the _Hell_ -?" he began, raising one hand to generate an energy ball.

"My apologies, my Liege," the Seer said, standing up to look regretfully at him. "I attempted to inform the vampire that you had no interest in his demands, but he was most insistent-"

"You're damn right I was _insistent_ ; you can't keep him locked up like that!" Spike yelled, walking over to glare at Cole. "He's _my_ bloody grandsire; after all the _shit_ he did to me _before_ -"

Cole barely stopped to think; as soon as he registered who Spike had to be referring to, one hand practically automatically closed around the vampire's throat, the other generating an energy ball to aim at the Fyarl demon (That mucus of theirs couldn't do much to him, but an energy ball should be enough to stop it reaching him if it tried to use its trademark 'weapon' against him).

"I'm fairly sure I've made my position on that topic clear," he said (When confused in a fight situation where everyone involved thought that he knew more than he did in the past, Cole had found it was best to bluff his way through the situation until he had the chance to collect himself). "Your 'grandsire' is _mine_ until I say otherwise; is that clear?"

A weak nod from Spike was all the response that the vampire was capable of, but it was enough to prompt Cole to release his grip.

"Get someone to show you out," he said, waving a dismissive hand at Spike as he turned to look at the Seer. "Something I should know about?"

"I continue to question the wisdom of keeping the vampire prisoner like that," the Seer replied bluntly.

 _Prisoner_? Cole thought to himself.

What could have happened in this new timeline to make him keep Angel _prisoner_?

"My reasons for keeping him are my own," he said, hoping that the bluff would get him through this increasingly complicated situation; when he got up this morning (Or should that be the previous night, given that he'd 'jumped' over most of the last night?), he certainly hadn't been expecting to find himself in _this_ situation...

"I do not seek to question your wisdom, my lord," the Seer said, looking at him in a conciliatory manner. "However, you must remember that he remains an unknown factor in my visions; his future is such an anomalous presence that I cannot be certain what he shall do in the future..."

Cole only barely registered what she said after that; her reference to him as her 'lord' opened up a while series of questions that he had _no_ idea how to answer.

He was the _Source_ in this reality?

How the _Hell_ had he ended up as the Source when he was still _Belthazor_? He wasn't _that_ powerful...

Or _was_ he?

He had to admit, when he got down to it, he didn't actually know _what_ his full limitations were on his own back when he was Belthazor. The Triad had tended to give him the occasional 'boost' for his more difficult assignments, such as when he was sent after the Charmed Ones in the first place, and apart from that incident with Sykes he'd always tried to hold back on allowing himself full reign when it came to using his demon powers; his soul had given him the ability to think more tactically than most demons, and he hadn't wanted to sacrifice the ability to outthink his enemies for the _chance_ that he could overpower them...

What if, in _this_ reality, at least one of the changes from the history he knew was that the sisters hadn't been able to vanquish his demon half after his fight with Sykes (Or some equivalent confrontation with the same result, anyway)? Even if he'd retained at least _some_ of his previously tactical skills- that kind of thing was something he'd learned rather than just something he was born with, after all-, with Belthazor as the 'dominant' part of himself it wasn't impossible to assume that he'd have resorted to more ruthless measures to stop the Source's pursuit of him for his 'betrayal', and then taken advantage of the resulting chaos to establish _himself_ as the new Source while the Underworld was still in chaos from the shock of his 'revolution'...

 _Oh God_... he thought, the implications of her statements occurring to him.

Hurrying over to the door leading down to the Halliwells' basement- he'd worry about explaining his actions to the Seer later-, he hurried down the stairs, his eyes automatically falling on the still body lying in a corner, chained to the wall, distinctive burns covering his chest as he stared blearily up at the stairs.

"What the _Hell_... do you want now?" Angel asked, glaring up at the reborn Belthazor. "I told you... I don't _know_... what they did... to restore my soul..."

The fact that Angel's statement at least suggested that his theory about why his other self was holding the vampire captive was correct- having given himself over to his demon side, he was now actively working to find a way to suppress his soul, and apparently thought that learning how Angel was cursed would give him a way to work out how to get rid of his own soul- at least gave Cole some new information about this reality, but all it had accomplished was making him feel worse about himself.

God... he'd been scared at the _possibility_ of his old powers reaching the point where they'd drive him crazy, and now he'd traded them away for a reality where he was _willingly_ evil?

Not only was he the apparent new Source, but the fact that he was _living_ in the manor was far from encouraging; what the hell had he _done_ to the Halliwells in this reality...?


	20. Background to the Wish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this chapter progresses, keep in mind that Cole is not only slightly more sane at this point compared to how he was when he changed reality in the show, but he also doesn't _know_ what he changed to create this reality; all he knows about this world so far is that he's still Belthazor and Angel's chained up in the manor basement, but he currently has no idea _precisely_ what happened to the sisters in this new timeline (Who's alive and who 'should' be dead, things of that nature)

Unable to take his eyes off Angel's badly-burned form, Cole hurriedly moved back up the stairs before he felt the need to answer the vampire who should have been his friend- just because he could guess how he could have reached the point where he'd torture the only person who came close to understanding what it was like to be him didn't mean he had to like-, shutting the door behind him to look over at the Seer with a nonchalance that he hoped was more convincing to her than it was to him.

"Still no change there, anyway," he said, shrugging slightly as he looked at the Seer, his mind racing to try and think of a way around this whole mess he now found himself in; was there _anything_ in this reality that had worked out the way he'd wanted it to when he'd made that wish?

God, he knew that vengeance demons would twist anything and everything about the wording of a wish to give the person what they _asked_ for without giving them what they _wanted_ , but twisting something around to _this_ extent?

"So," he said, turning to the Seer- who, he was grateful to note, wasn't looking at him with any particular suspicion; maybe she was used to his other self acting slightly 'off' at times given the possible 'tension' between his human soul and his now-apparently-dominant demon side-, "where's, uh, Phoebe?"

The Seer's lack of reply wasn't exactly encouraging, even if the fact that her expression didn't demonstrate total confusion about why he was asking after the youngest 'official' Halliwell at least suggested that Phoebe was still alive.

"Answer me," he repeated, before the sound of a door opening upstairs prompted him to turn around. As his gaze fixed on the stairs, a distinctive leg appeared in his vision as its owner walked down from the upper landing, followed by the sight of Phoebe in a brilliant red dress, her hair curled in a shoulder-length cut as she took in the group in the lobby with a brief glance.

Cole didn't even stop to think about her apparent nonchalance at being in a manor full of demons; the thought that she was here... that she was _living_ with him...

"What's the matter?" Phoebe asked, pausing at the bottom of the stairs as Cole walked over to stand in front of her, an abrupt tone to her voice that Cole only briefly registered. "Not what you expected?"

"No," Cole replied, trying to bring his mind to focus at this first sign that something might have gone _right_ for him in making this wish; if he could work out a way to release Angel without attracting too much attention, maybe this new world _could_ work for him. "You look... you look great, really."

"Did you just give me a compliment?" Phoebe asked, looking at him in a critical manner that Cole decided to ignore; whatever his other self had done before now, he could _definitely_ make up for it.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you," he said, leaning in to kiss her, only to stop short when he found his lips heading towards her cheek and her hand on his chest.

"What the Hell is the matter with you?" she asked, her voice low as she looked at him in confusion before she casually brushed past him, heading off to chat with a group of demons off in one corner of the room.

 _What the Hell_? Cole asked himself, unable to do more than stare after Phoebe in confusion.

He'd expected that their relationship would have suffered if he'd really given into his demonic side, but Phoebe wouldn't stay with him if she didn't _want_ to stay with him... right?

"Don't worry about her," the Seer suddenly said, drawing Cole's attention to where the prophetic demon now stood beside him. "My visions have not changed. Once she conceives your magical heir, you won't need to keep up pretences any more. I'll take it from there."

Cole felt like swearing at that revelation; even when his counterpart had the one thing he'd wanted for ages, he _had_ to do something to screw it up...

As Phoebe moved off towards the kitchen, Cole decided to take a closer look at that pool table; with unexpected information coming at him from right and left, he needed a way to cool down right now before he let off any frustration in a manner that all concerned would regret later, and since actually _fighting_ something wasn't an option without attracting too many questions, knocking the balls around seemed like the safer option.

* * *

  
As Paige walked silently through the group of demons in the mansion- she was _definitely_ grateful for the lessons she'd received from Angel in terms of stealth over the last few months; there might be a lot of demons around here, but Angel had given her some interesting pointers about how to be 'invisible' in a crowd-, she only took a brief note of Cole heading for another room; whatever was happening in this reality, she wouldn't help matters by going after Cole- the most likely candidate for whatever had happened here- before she had a plan.

Noting Phoebe heading towards the kitchen- followed by a couple of people who looked like a chef and a waitress walking out of the room in question-, Paige hurried towards the room as fast as she could without attracting attention to herself, just in time to find Phoebe talking a deep draw on a cigarette that she'd somehow produced from somewhere.

"Phoebe," she said, her sister's subsequent shocked gasp and the confusion on her face as she turned to look at her all that Paige needed to confirm what she'd already gathered from her meeting with Leo and Piper; none of her sisters knew her now.

"You don't recognise me," she said, hoping she sounded more casual than she felt; magic might have taught her to expect the unexpected, but this was just too weird. "That's OK; Piper didn't either."

"Piper?" Phoebe repeated, hostile confusion being replaced by a smile of relief as she walked forward to lean against the work surface. "You know Piper? How is she?"

"She's, uh, different," Paige replied, quickly steeling herself for what she was about to say; the faster she got down to business, the faster she could get back to reality. "Look, I don't have a lot of time, so I'm just gonna drop this on you. I am your long-lost sister Paige. I know! It sounds crazy, but it's true. We're all sisters in the real world."

For a moment, as Phoebe looked quizzically at her, Paige thought that she'd made her point...

"Guards!" Phoebe yelled, quickly ending that admittedly weak hope that her delay had inspired.

"Look, I don't know what happened here, but something _twisted_ reality, and I seem to be the only one who... slipped through the cracks, for lack of a better term," Paige explained; hopefully the direct approach would work despite her inability to provide any real evidence to back it up. "Whatever happened, I need your help to turn things back-"

"You called?" a familiar voice said as a door opened behind her, prompting Paige to turn around and take in the equally-familiar face attached to the voice.

"Darryl!" she said, smiling in relief. "Hi!"

"Get rid of her," Phoebe said, forcing Paige back to face the reality of her situation; like her sisters, this Darryl didn't know her and had no reason to trust her.

As Darryl moved to grab Paige's arm, Paige didn't stop to be shocked at this latest turn of events; if she'd learned anything from her confrontations with Angelus last year, it was to be ready to fight off any kind of threat, even if it came from people she considered friends. Neatly sidestepping Darryl's arm- he was fast, but compared to the vampires Paige had killed over the last year he was significantly slower-, she launched a quick but powerful punch to his chest that left him disorientated long enough for her to grab a nearby frying pan and hit him in the head, knocking him out just as Phoebe grabbed a knife on a nearby cutting board.

"Sorry about this, Phoebe," Paige, said, before she knocked the knife out of her sister's hand with a rapid kick, "but if you can't help me right now, I'm going to need to rethink this whole thing."

She just wished that she felt as confident as she'd sounded as she ran for the door, barely registering signs of movement as Darryl apparently began to regain consciousness, her mind racing to come with a new strategy now that things at the manor were clearly a bust; maybe she could get a map and a new set of crystals to try and scry for Angel or Doyle...

As she heard footsteps beginning to follow her as she ran for the street, Paige quickly threw thoughts of alternate methods of coping on her own; if she was going to get out of this, she _definitely_ needed help.

"Leo!" she yelled, hurrying into the street and ducking to put a car between her and the manor (Hopefully, whatever had happened here, even the demons were probably still operating on a policy of _not_ attracting the attention that would be caused by someone getting shot outside a base). " _Leo_!"

After a few tense moments as Paige waited, the sound of footsteps coming ever-closer to her current location, her call was answered as Leo appeared, grabbing her arm and standing still for a few moments before orbing out once more...

* * *

  
As they returned to reality, Paige sighed in relief; she might have screwed up, but at least she was still alive to figure out a way to put things back.

"Thanks," she said, looking over at Leo as she tried to calm her breathing and heart-rate so that she coul think more clearly about what had just happened. "That was cutting it a little close, don't you think?"

"You're lucky I came at all," Leo said, as he began to walk down the path in what Paige only now realised was a cemetery.

"I'm lucky?" she said, questions about Leo's choice of locale pushed aside in favour of frustration; right now, anger was easier to deal with than the alternatives. " _You're_ lucky! Without me, we're all screwed; I'm the only one who can fix this thing!"

"Oh, yeah?" Leo said, his tone non-committal as he continued walking.

"Oh God," Paige said, shaking her head as the implications of the events of the last few hours began to make themselves clear to her. "It's just so... _weird_. Cole living at the Manor, all those demons we vanquished wandering around alive... Wait a second..."

She couldn't believe that the train of thought that had just come to her hadn't hit her earlier; it was so _obvious_ when she thought about it now.

"If the demons are alive," she said, "than that means all the innocents we saved are... dead."

"Not just the innocents, Paige," Leo said grimly.

"What are you talking about?" Paige asked, looking questioningly at her silent should-have-been-brother-in-law.

Now that she thought about it, this place _was_ a bit of an odd area to go to 'hide' after escaping from a house full of demons; why had Leo brought her here...?

"What are we doing here?" she asked, looking over anxiously at the Whitelighter.

In response, Leo glanced over at a particular grave a short distance from where the two of them were standing, consisting of a small slab of stone lying on the ground with writing on it.

PAIGE MATTHEWS  
BORN 1975- DIED 2001

 _Oh God_... Paige thought, her eyes widening in horror.

Cole had created this reality by _killing_ her?

She'd known that he was approaching the brink- Angel had warned them more often than not that they needed to find a balance in how they treated Cole before the powers he'd picked up the Wasteland drove him too far over the edge-, but from what Angel had told them about things he'd overheard as Angelus, Cole had refused to kill her even when he was the _Source_ because of some weird respect he'd had for his old friendship with Angel; the idea that he'd chosen _this_ way to solve his problems...

"After you left, I went and checked with the Elders," Leo explained. "They confirmed your story that there was, in fact, another sister, only they didn't know until it was too late, until... after the Soruce had already had you killed."

"This reality sucks," Paige said resolutely, trying to restrain the sudden apprehension she felt at this news; if she'd been killed before she was 'summoned' to Prue's funeral, what had happened to Angel when his original 'instructions' to meet her had fallen apart...?

"Well, it explains why none of us knew you," Leo said, as they began to walk back along the main path. "We never got a chance to meet you."

"So, what, you believe me now?" Paige asked.

"I'm not sure what I believe," Leo responded. "The fact is, you're here and you're not supposed to be."

"OK, so we've established that I'm here; why don't I have my powers?" Paige asked; she might not be _helpless_ without her abilities, but given the current situation she needed every edge she could get.

"Because you're not living your life any more; you're living hers," Leo clarified, indicating her other self's grave. "You must have taken over our Paige's life in this reality, or at least ... the life she would have lived had she not been killed. And since she never met her sisters-"

"The Power of Three never got back together, and I never got my powers," Paige finished (She briefly wondered why she hadn't at least retained her orbing abilities, but a brief recollection of an incident that Piper and Phoebe had told her about where they'd gone back in time and lost their powers while their younger selves had still possessed them provided her with an answer to that one; her other self must still count as being 'around' enough for _her_ to have the power to orb instead of her, even if she wasn't able to use it). "Lucky me."

"Luckier than you think, maybe," Leo added. "If you hadn't orbed when you did and been in the Neutral Plane when whatever happened changed reality, nobody would have ever known."

"Except for... whoever did this," Paige finished, shaking her head slightly in contemplation before she looked back at Leo. "Look, I don't know who did this, but so far Cole's the only person who seems to have even remotely benefited from this turn of events- even if Phoebe still hates him here-, so I'm probably going to have to talk with him if I'm going to figure out what happened..."

She sighed in frustration. " _Damnit_... this'd be easier with my sisters..."

"Well," an unexpected voice said from off to the side, "maybe we can start with me and work our way along from there?"

Turning around, Paige was unable to stop a slight smile reaching her face at the sight of Piper walking towards her; the other woman might still be wearing that skintight black leather outfit that made her think more of Emma Peel or something like that than the expectant mother her sister _should_ be, but that she was here at all was encouraging.

"What are you doing here?" she asked; she didn't want to get her hopes up unless she had good reason to.

"Burying the Lazarus demon," Piper replied. "Figured that if you were right about that, you were probably right about everything else as well."

It was a minor victory, but as Paige had learned over the last year, sometimes the minor victories added up to give you the big one you'd been looking for.

* * *

  
As he stared at the pool table in front of him, Cole wished he could find somewhere where he could be sure of getting a few moments to himself so that he could better figure out his next move; staying in the mansion might allow him to be available if any demons tried going after any innocents- maybe he could figure out some other orders to give them that would encourage the demons to take out people who _deserved_ to die; there was a law firm he'd heard about that the Source had had some trouble with in the past-, but he was still trying to play catch-up without anyone knowing.

He'd been lucky so far with his near-slip when asking about Darryl working for him now, but with this whole thing with an unidentified witch sneaking in to talk to Phoebe for some reason, it was clear that there was a lot of stuff going on here that he didn't know about...

Glancing up as he sank another billiard ball in frustration, his eyes widened incredulously at the sight of Phoebe laughing in the arms of a demon guard before she hurried up the stairs, the guard close behind her.

"What the _hell_?" Cole said, his attempt to stay in control forgotten at this new development; the one thing he thought was going _right_ for him in this world had been the fact that he was married to Phoebe, and even _that_ hadn't worked out for him?

"My lord?" the Seer said, looking at him in confusion. "What is wrong? You both have your affairs; that's no secret-"

" _What_?" Cole said, turning to look incredulously at the Seer.

"Darla," the Seer called over to a young blonde standing behind her, the young woman- who, Cole was relieved to note with the part of his mind that wasn't shocked at this latest twist, wasn't the vampire that Angel had staked in P3 to save Paige when they'd first met him-, walking over with a seductive smile.

"Who's this?" Cole asked, even as the sinking feeling in his gut at her expression stopped him from even trying to lie to himself that he didn't know what was happening here.

"Who I always am, baby," 'Darla' smiled- she might not be Angel's Darla, but she was definitely at least similarly inclined where her sexual appetite was concerned- as she leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Whoever you want me to be..."

" _Not_ right now," Cole said, pushing Darla firmly away from him as he tried to resist the urge to torch Darla and Phoebe's lover for their nerve in daring to touch him or the woman he loved; he had to _think_ if he was going to figure this out...

But who the _hell_ was going to give him that help, damnit? Angel was locked up in the basement after what had to be months of torture and was clearly in no fit shape to do much, Phoebe barely seemed willing to talk to him, his contact with Leo was almost certainly non-existent judging by Darryl and the Seer's reaction to him appearing outside the house to save whoever that witch was, Piper was apparently totally off the map- he'd checked Phoebe's address book earlier while she was mingling with their current 'guests' and there wasn't so much as a contact number for her sisters-, and he didn't know if Prue was still alive in this reality, never mind what the situation was regarding Paige...

 _Fuck_ , Cole swore to himself.

He didn't even want to _know_ why Phoebe was staying with him in this reality, if what he'd seen of her so far was any indication of her current history. Even the Source had been smart enough to know that she'd only become his Queen back in the 'original' history because of the influence of the baby and the Seer's tonic, coupled with the current tensions between her and her sisters over the baby's development; if she was staying around in this kind of life _without_ the baby's influence, he was willing to bet that it was only because she was trying to 'limit' what he could do as the Source or something like that, with her affairs serving as an escape from a life she clearly had _no_ interest in living...

* * *

  
"So," Piper asked, as she walked through the remains of P3, contemplatively taking in the rubble around them, "you say the club is still pretty successful in this alleged other reality of yours?"

"It's not 'alleged'," Paige countered, as she stood in the centre of the now-desolate dance floor (She wished she'd been able to find a better location for this talk, but without any way of knowing what her or Angel's apartments were like in this world P3 was the safest place). "It's real, and it's really good."

"Oh yeah?" Piper asked, still staring at the ruined building without looking at Paige. "Am I a millionaire?"

"No, not _that_ good," Paige replied, smiling slightly before she tried to resume her story. "Listen, if we want to get this place back to how it used to be, we really ought to-"

"How is it that we don't know about you, that we had another sister?" Piper interjected, turning around to look at her directly.

"Half-sister, apparently," Leo put in from his position on the stage.

"Right," Paige said, quickly going over her history in her mind- the easier it was to cover the essential details the better right now-, before she continued. "The Cliffs Notes version: our mom had an affair with her Whitelighter Sam, but because of the whole Witch-Whitelighter rule thing, they had to give me up at birth. But when The Elders realized they needed me to remake The Charmed Ones, they tossed out that stupid rule, which, as far as I'm concerned, paved the way for you and Leo to be able to keep your baby."

For a moment, Piper and Leo exchanged glances, but the moment passed as Piper turned back to look at her (Although the fact that they'd _had_ a moment was encouragement enough).

"Well, how pregnant am I, exactly?" Piper asked.

"Phoebe and I are practicing to be your midwives as we speak," Paige said with a nonchalant smile. "We're preparing for the big home birth."

"Home birth?" Piper repeated incredulously. "You're nuts; I'd never agree to that. I wouldn't give birth unless it was in-"

"A hospital, yeah, yeah; you keep saying the same thing in any reality," Paige interrupted, shaking her head in exasperated amusement. "Hey, who else but a sister would know that?"

"We must be pretty close then, the three of us," Piper said after a moment's pause, her tone awkward but nevertheless gradually moving towards acceptance of the current topic. "Like... Phoebe and I were with Prue?"

"Yeah," Paige replied. "Close enough to have avenged Prue's death together."

She hated having to use vengeance as a tool for making her point, but given what this Piper had been doing when she met her, it was the only way she could be sure of making her point right now.

"This Cole of yours must have cast a pretty powerful spell to do all of this," Piper said at last, a slight swallow in her throat as she clearly worked to keep her emotions under control, "but if we vanquish him, the spell should automatically reverse itself."

"Great, except that there's no way of working out _how_ we're going to pull that off," Paige interrupted, shaking her head grimly. "We hadn't exactly gotten around to trying to vanquish him yet- he hadn't done anything _really_ dangerous to us since he got back- but-"

"Hold on; from what you've told us, he was probably powerful enough to do something like this, and now you're telling me that he's _not_ the one responsible?" Piper interrupted, looking intently at Paige.

"Look, all I meant was that he's the only person connected to us who seems to have actually _benefited_ from this reality warp, and he definitely had the _potential_ power to do this kind of thing; I'm just not _sure_ if it's him..." Paige explained, wishing she sounded less awkward (She loved Angel for encouraging her to keep an open mind about issues of good versus evil, but that didn't mean it didn't get awkward when she was in _this_ kind of position).

"Well, even if he's not the person responsible for this shift, the fact that he's the only person you've found so far who actually benefits from it suggests that he might know more about it than we do, anyway," Leo mentioned. "In which case, we might have a chance if we can at least _threaten_ to vanquish him; if you've assumed our Paige's life, he must have assumed Belthazor's."

"And you guys would still have the Belthazor-vanquishing potion that you and Prue made, right?" Paige asked, a slight smile

"How do you know about that?" Piper asked.

"It's in the Book of Shadows," Paige clarified. "It also says that it needs a piece of his flesh to make it work."

"That's right, it did," Leo confirmed.

"All right, then," Piper said after a brief pause, pulling a wicked-looking black knife from her belt as she looked at Paige. "Let's go hunting."

Paige just hoped that Leo's assessment of the situation was right; Cole might be the most likely candidate for the recent reality warp, but whether Angel's words or her own doubts were the motivating factor behind her current feelings, that didn't mean that she was _totally_ sold on the idea...


	21. Breaking the Wish

As Cole stood grimly at the end of an upper corridor in the manor- he'd requested a bit of peace and quiet after dealing with some of the more immediate 'affairs of state' that his role demanded of him-, he tried to work out what his next move should be in this situation.

Phoebe definitely wouldn't be much help; if what he'd seen about her attitude towards his counterpart was any indication, she'd probably believe that the sky was purple before she believed anything he had to tell her about reality having been altered, and he didn't exactly have a lot of evidence to back up his claims. Angel definitely wasn't in any shape to help him, Leo wouldn't answer any calls for help, and without Leo he couldn't hope to find any of the other Halliwells to give him some kind of assistance...

Then he walked around a corner and saw Piper standing in front of a window, dressed in a leather outfit that he could never have imagined her wearing in the 'real' world with a resolute expression on her face and a cold intensity in her eyes that reminded him uncomfortably of Angelus.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his initial thoughts about his relief at making contact with another Halliwell pushed aside by the confusion he felt at the suddenness of her appearance; somehow, based on his other self's apparently regular activities, he doubted that she'd come here for a casual visit...

"Saving my sister," Piper replied simply.

With that, she waved her hands, a powerful blast from her explosive powers striking Cole and sending him flying backwards into a cabinet behind him. For a moment he lay on the floor in a daze, trying to regain his spatial awareness- that might not have killed him, but it _really_ hurt-, but then he looked up and saw Paige and Leo standing over him, a grim expression on Paige's face that was too much like Angel's glares for Cole to doubt what was angering her.

Piper and Phoebe might be of this world, but Paige had apparently followed him through when Gemin had cast his 'spell'...

"You're here..." he said, a slight smile on his face; after the mess his other self had made of his relationships with Phoebe and Angel, it was slightly comforting to see someone he knew who was acting the way she should, even if her expression wasn't entirely encouraging...

"Surprise," Paige said grimly, before she crouched down and grabbed his right wrist, a serrated knife slicing through his right palm and taking a piece of his flesh before he realised what was happening.

" _Wait_!" he gasped, clutching his bleeding hand as he looked urgently up at the half-Whitelighter, now standing alongside Leo as Piper moved to join them. "This wasn't _me_ -!"

"What?" the three people in front of him said, each looking at him in varying stages of confusion and hostility (The fact that even _Leo_ was looking suspiciously at him said everything Cole needed to know about his other self's life; back in reality, Leo might go along with his wife's suspicions about Cole, but he still seemed to at least _try_ and feel sorry for him).

"Paige," Cole said, his gaze fixing on the sister in question, his senses checking the immediate area for other demons- there might be a few demons in the area, but nothing near enough for them to overhear what he was trying to say-, "I know how this looks, but _I_ didn't do this; a vengeance demon granted my wish and turned _me_ into the power source-"

"Sorry; a what turned you into the what?" Paige asked, looking at him in confusion. "What's that got to do with-?"

"Leo can fill you in on them later; that's not important right now," Cole said, waving an urgent hand as he looked intently at the half-Whitelighter; demons were approaching them even as they spoke, and there was only limited time left before anyone came here who shouldn't be. "He's in the basement, Paige."

* * *

  
Paige didn't need to ask who Cole was referring to with that comment; there was only one 'he' who sprang to mind after that statement.

"Before you get him, just keep in mind that he was that way when I got here, and I've only been in this world for a few hours; I've been trying to figure out a way to let him out without revealing to anyone else here that I'm not who they think I am-" Cole began.

"Save it," Paige said, her glare fixed on Cole long enough to make it clear that she had no interest in further protestations of guilt or innocence that may or may not be accurate before she turned to Leo. "Get me to the basement."

"Paige, we don't have-" Piper began.

" _The basement_ ," Paige repeated, glaring over at her sister with the intense stare that was one of many things she'd unofficially picked up from her boyfriend; if Cole was telling even _some_ of the truth right now, she had to know _soon_.

After a moment's hesitation, Leo nodded, took her arm...

* * *

  
When the bright white of orb-light had cleared from her vision, Paige's eyes fell on the huddled, shaking form lying on the ground before her, and her heart felt like someone had grabbed it in their bare hands while it was still in her chest.

"Oh my God..." she said, hurrying over to crouch down beside the clearly-shaken vampire in front of her, wincing at the sight of the burns covering his chest as he turned to look at her, so much vulnerability in a body that had always shown strength even when he was dealing with the guilt and grief he'd felt after he regained his soul. "Angel...?"

"Paige...?" the ex-Scourge of Europe said, his gaze hesitant and uncertain as he looked at her, as though straining to confirm a dim memory he wasn't even sure of the accuracy of any more. "You're... you're here?"

"Yeah..." the half-Whitelighter replied, reaching out to tenderly stroke Angel's face, blinking back tears when the vampire she loved so much instinctively recoiled from the possibility of contact for a moment before regaining control of himself.

"I... I was training for you..." he said, looking at her in confusion as he slowly moved from a sitting position to his knees, his gaze still fixed on hers even as his body trembled, clearly weakened by whatever had been done to him. "I was going to help you... but the Source... his demons..."

"Oh, Angel..." Paige whispered, tears filling her eyes as she looked at the man in front of her, the man Angel might have become if he'd lost his purpose before he could even fully gain it, hanging on to something that was nothing but a memory in this world...

"Get us out of here," she said, taking a tight grip on Angel's shoulder and arm as she looked back at Leo.

"Paige, I don't-" Leo tried to protest.

"I _know_ him," Paige said, her resolute stare at the Whitelighter allowing no room for argument as she tightened her grip on Angel's arm. "We are _not_ leaving him here, OK; we're taking him back to P3 with us, and we are _helping_ him."

Even as Leo conceded to her 'request' and began to orb them out of the manor, Paige just hoped that they wouldn't freak out _too_ much when they realised what Angel was...

* * *

  
"OK," Piper said, looking slightly impatiently at Paige as her recently-discovered-yet-already-unnervingly-familiar alleged half-sister tossed her the last couple of ingredients for the Belthazor-vanquishing potion they'd been making, "now that we're about done here, care to explain who _that_ guy is?"

She'd seen enough of Paige's reaction to the stranger she'd identified as 'Angel'- who was even now lying in a corner of the club, his body hunched over in a manner that clearly suggested he'd grown used to being attacked in the past- to guess that the man who'd apparently been extensively tortured in the mansion meant something to Paige in the 'real' world, but given how weird things had been- coupled with the fact that Paige had refused to allow Leo to heal the guy's injuries-, she felt that she was entitled to answers.

"Just a moment..." Paige said, looking contemplatively at the cauldron as she tossed the recently-acquired piece of Cole's flesh into it, smiling in approval at the resulting explosion. "OK, now that that's out of the way, I'll give you the basics; his name's Angel, and in the real world he runs a detective agency with me, Leo, and a guy named Doyle who doesn't seem to be here, he's my boyfriend, and he's a vampire-"

"He's a _what_?" Leo said (Piper wasn't sure she'd ever seen her ex-husband look as shocked as he did at that moment), standing up from where he'd been sitting silently in a corner of the ruined club to glare at the still-weakened form lying near him. "I thought-!"

"OK, before you get started on that, Angel is _not_ Cole, got me?" Paige interjected, walking forward to stand resolutely in front of Leo. "For one thing, everything Angel did wrong as a vampire was committed _before_ he got his soul back, and he got it as a curse-!"

"Let me guess; he was cursed because of the people he'd killed _before_ he got it?" Piper yelled; she couldn't believe that _another_ sister had gone and fallen for a demonic killer. "What the hell difference does that make-?"

"Because he has _never_ killed innocent people when he _had_ his soul, OK?" Paige yelled, her stance firm as she continued to glare at this alternate version of her eldest-surviving sister. "I get that you've got issues after the precedent Cole set, but it's not the same thing; Cole had to deal with his soul even when he was evil, but Angel doesn't _do_ that sort of thing-!"

"I am not working with a _vampire_ -!" Piper began.

" _I am not letting the man I love get tortured because Cole made some stupid wish to some kind of vengeance demon_!" Paige yelled back.

For a moment there was silence as the four people in the abandoned club looked at each other, each of them trying to work out what they could say next, until Angel broke the silence.

"Belthazor... made a wish... to make this world?" he asked, looking uncertainly up at Paige. "Does that mean... you weren't _meant_... to die?"

"No," Paige replied, crouching down to look at the still-weak vampire with a reassuring smile. "And you're not meant to be like this, Angel; back where I came from, you're a champion, helping us save innocents from all kinds of demons- you even risked your life to stop a life-sucking demon and helped us come up with a plan to take out a doctor who could take himself apart whenever he wanted-, and I've been dating you for... well, pretty much almost a year now."

"We... we're dating...?" Angel said, a slightly incredulous smile on his face as he looked at her. "And... and you...?"

"Know what you are?" Paige finished for him, guessing what had most surprised Angel in her last statement; if the Angel she knew still had trouble sometimes accepting that she really loved him, it was going to be a _real_ shock for this guy to accept it after what he'd been through. "Yeah, I know what you are; after you staked Darla for me, it'd be kind of hard not to..."

"Darla?" Angel repeated, his eyes widening in surprise. "I _staked_ her?"

"It was her or me, and you picked me," Paige confirmed with a smile.

"Hold on; you're saying that a _vampire_ staked his _sire_ for you?" Leo said, looking between Angel and Paige as though trying to work out if one of them was playing a joke.

"What can I say?" Paige replied. "I made an impression."

"That's... good?" Piper asked, looking uncertainly at her ex-husband.

"Vampires staking their sires are virtually unheard of; the fact that Angel defied virtually every rule of being a vampire for Paige says... well, it says a lot, anyway," Leo said, before he looked at Angel with a slightly awkward expression. "I mean, I still wouldn't exactly say I _trust_ you- that _was_ an alternate version of you, after all; just because you were like that _there_ doesn't demonstrate what you're like _here_ -, but if you're capable of something like that-"

"OK, so he's not going to kill us; getting back on track; what exactly _is_ a 'vengeance demon' anyway?" Piper asked, looking intently at Leo; judging by the slight tension in her stance, Paige was prepared to bet that she still wasn't entirely convinced that Angel wasn't going to hurt her, but could at least accept that he wasn't going to kill them right _now_ anyway.

"Right, sorry," Leo explained, a slightly uncertain expression on his face as he looked at Angel one last time before he turned to face Piper and Paige. "Basically, they're exactly what the title sounds like; they're demons who specialise in avenging a person's wrongs. "They're generally drawn to strong sources of emotional pain- specific demons have specific people they 'help'; I know of one vengeance demon who specialises in granting the wishes of scorned women and another who 'helps' neglected children-, and, having integrated themselves into their 'target's' lives, prompt them into making a wish that the vengeance demon will grant."

"And the catch?" Paige asked. "I mean, if they're demons, there's _bound_ to be a catch..."

"Yeah, there is," Leo confirmed. "It's like with genies; the vengeance demon will give the person making the wish exactly what they asked for, without giving them exactly what they _wanted_ , or maybe even take a casual comment that you made and twist it into an actual wish when you wouldn't want it to really come true..."

"Which is pretty much what they did to me," Cole's voice suddenly said from behind the group.

" _What the_ -?" Piper began, spinning around with her hands raised in a position to use her powers, Paige and Angel already shifting into a combat stance themselves despite Paige's full awareness of just how pointless anything she could try against Cole would actually be (He might just be Belthazor right now, but even energy balls and shimmering could be dangerous if she couldn't actually _do_ anything apart from orb herself).

" _Wait_!" Cole yelled, his hands out in front of him as he looked urgently between the sisters and their respective partners. "I know how this looks, but I'm not here to stop you; I just want to _talk_ -!"

"Oh, like I should really buy that?" Paige retorted, glaring back at Cole. "You just rewrote _reality_ to get Phoebe back; how do I-?"

"I didn't _know_ I was talking to a vengeance demon; how was I to know that asking for things to get a bit less complicated would result in... in _this_?" Cole countered, waving his hands at the shattered club around him, before he shook his head. "Look, that's not important right now; what _is_ important is that I've apparently been turned into the power source for this world-"

"Back up a minute; you're the _what_?" Paige asked.

"Vengeance demons are powered by a centre of some sort; female vengeance demons tend to use a necklace, but the men can use a ring or something like that," Leo explained, before his eyes widened in realisation. "But if Cole _himself_ is the power source of this wish..."

"Exactly," Cole confirmed, his arms spread. "Vanquish me, and you stop this world; everything resets back to the way it was, apart from the fact that I'll be dead."

For a moment, Piper, Paige, Leo and Angel could only stare at Cole in varying degrees of incredulity, until Piper broke the silence.

"OK, sorry, I think I need to make sure I got this right; you're telling me that you _want_ us to _kill_ you?" she asked. "No offence, but after spending the last two years watching you take over the underworld-"

"I'm not that guy, Piper," Cole said, looking earnestly at her. "We might have started out as the same person, but I'm not him any more; I don't know how I reached that state, but I do know that I _can't_ be that person now..."

"OK, so maybe you're not interested in being the demon head honcho; what about the fact that you're actually _married_ to Phoebe?" Paige butted in, her arms folded as she glared at Cole. "Doesn't sound like you've got much reason _not_ to like this-"

"She's only with _me_ to keep _you_ safe; you really think I want a relationship with someone in _that_ kind of situation?" Cole asked, bitterly rolling his eyes as he looked back at Paige. "All I ever wanted was for Phoebe to love me the way she used to; I can't just put our old relationship back together after I made things _this_ bad!"

For a moment, the former and now-current Belthazor looked awkwardly between the two witches, the whitelighter, and the weakened vampire, before he finally sighed and waved a hand at Angel. "Besides, even without the fact that my other self pretty much took a steamroller to my marriage... how can I have any kind of life in a world where I did _that_ to the closest thing I ever had to a brother?"

It was the simple sincerity in that statement, more than anything else, that convinced Paige that Cole was telling the truth.

She might not entirely trust him when it came to Phoebe, but after he had sacrificed his powerless state in order to save Angel when he could have just let the vampire burn himself out, she _was_ more willing to accept the idea that he still cared for the vampire in a less insanely dangerous way...

"You're sure about this?" she asked, reaching behind her to take hold of the cauldron with the potion in it (It might be a bit overkill, but nothing had ever been said to suggest that using too _much_ vanquishing potion would cause problems).

"I'm sure," Cole said, lowering his hands as he stood in front of her, his expression grim as he stared her in the eyes. "Just... tell Phoebe I love her, and tell Angel... I'm sorry."

Paige could only nod briefly before she gritted her teeth and swung the cauldron around, the potion striking Cole in the chest as he stood there. For a moment, Cole just stood there as the flames of a vanquish enveloped him, clearly trying to restrain the urge to scream before he opened his mouth to roar in pain...

* * *

  
After a strange moment where everything around her seemed to blur, Paige found herself standing in the middle of a now-closed P3- fortunately it was the middle of the day rather than the night it had been when she left; explaining this would have _definitely_ stretched the limits of what anyone was capable of even with magic-, Piper, Leo and Angel having vanished from their previous position behind her, without even a pile of dust to indicate the presence of what had been Cole's body in front of them.

"Whoa..." she said, smiling briefly at the site of the now-restored club, before a grimmer thought occurred to her. "Oh, please, God, tell me I'm back..."

Hit by sudden inspiration, she quickly orbed away, reappearing in Angel's apartment as her boyfriend stood in the middle of the room, currently shirtless as he worked on some moves that Paige recognised as Tai Chi.

"Wha- _Paige_?" Angel said, turning to look at her in surprise, only for Paige to cut conversation short as she leapt onto him and planted a deep kiss on his lips, the sight of his chest now unmarked by the scars of the torture he'd sustained in the other reality one of the best pieces of evidence she could get that she was home.

"Angel, man, we've-" a distinctive Irish-accented voice said from behind Paige, prompting her to pull her lips away from Angel's and turn her head just in time to see Doyle turning away from them with his arm pressed over his eyes. "Sorry; didn't know ye were busy..."

"DOYLE!" Paige smiled, pulling away from Angel to give the occasionally-drunk Irish Seer an enthusiastic hug. "You're back!"

"Uh... _he's_ back?" Angel said, blinking slightly as he reached over to pick up a shirt from a nearby chair and shrug it on. "Paige, no offence, but you're the one who just vanished last night; you never showed up at P3..."

"Time must've been moving on in this reality too..." Paige mused to herself.

"What?" Angel asked.

"Long story, trust me; first priority is that there's something I want to check out, and I'd... well, I'd like somebody else there with me," Paige said, reaching out to offer Angel her hand with a slight smile. "Care to join me?"

* * *

  
As she stood in the silent penthouse that had once belonged to Cole, Angel alongside her, Paige wondered how she should actually feel about the way things had turned out.

OK, so they'd confirmed a while back that there was no way to _take_ Cole's powers out without transferring them to somebody else, and Cole himself had admitted that with things the way they were for him it would only be a matter of time before he ended up reaching a point where he went more than slightly insane from the power he was trying to control...

But, on the other hand, Cole had _died_ for them.

He'd created that alternate reality totally by accident, he'd been just as horrified at what his other self had done as the rest of them, and when faced with the choice, he'd _asked_ Paige to kill him...

"So... that's it?" Doyle asked, looking uncertainly at the empty penthouse, the half-demon standing slightly at the back as Paige and Angel studied the building; given that Doyle had only ever known Cole while he was crazy, he was naturally more apprehensive about the prospect of running into the guy again than the other two were (Although Paige had to wonder how much of that particular fear stemmed from Doyle's own slight crush on Phoebe). "After all that, the guy dies because of some freaky temporal screw-up?"

"Sometimes, it's the things you weren't expecting that do you in," Angel said, shrugging slightly as he spoke, the grim expression on his face making it easy for Paige to guess what he was thinking about.

"Hey," she said, reaching over to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. "He wanted it that way, OK? I mean, I'm not happy that it ended _that_ way, but... at least he's at peace now, right?"

Even as she spoke, Paige was surprised to realise that she meant it.

She might not have always trusted Cole back when he was alive, but after he'd sacrificed himself, not just because he'd never have Phoebe in that other reality, but because of what his other self had done to somebody he'd considered the closest thing he ever had to a brother...

When you got down to it, it was kind of touching, really.

She wasn't sure if Phoebe would believe her when she got around to telling her sister what had taken place, of course- Angel had always believed in whatever good remained in Cole; Phoebe's attitude towards him had been sceptical at best since he came back from the Wasteland-, but she knew the truth, and Angel and Doyle were at least prepared to _try_ and believe her; that had to count for something, right?

"Goodbye, Cole," she said, looking around the room with a brief nod.

Wherever Cole was now, she hoped that he'd found some escape from the mental torment his powers had caused him in the last few months of his life...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, with that out of the way, the next story will look at a first-time attempt on my part; the events of "Sam I Am" combined with "Bachelor Party", as Paige and Doyle have to face up to their respective pasts...  
> To anyone who wanted Cole to live, I'm sorry, but the sheer amount of powers he'd acquired and their obvious effects on his mental state made that outcome a virtual impossibility...
> 
> If I said I have a couple of ideas for him to come back in the future, would that alleviate whatever punishment you had in mind for me?


	22. Secret Families

"So," Doyle said, looking uncertainly at Paige as she sat behind what would probably be considered the secretary's desk in a conventional detective office- he didn't really know if they could call it that here, given that they tended to just alternate 'desk duty' with whoever was available at the time rather than having a specific person responsible for it-, "how's things back at Halliwell Manor?"

"Oh, we're fine," Paige said, shrugging slightly as she casually flicked through one of Angel's demonology books- since she couldn't take the Book of Shadows away to study on her own, she had started looking over Angel's books instead, particularly since they explored the more physical demons that the Halliwell ancestors wouldn't have encountered in the past but that seemed to attract Angel's attention since he started working-, looking back at Doyle with a casual shrug. "Piper's still arguing with us and Leo about the benefits of a hospital birth versus the home birth we're trying to convince her to accept, Phoebe's getting used to the idea that she's _totally_ free of Cole now, and Angel..."

"Somethin' wrong there, lass?" Doyle asked, nodding the suddenly awkward expression on Paige's face when the topic of her boyfriend came up, trying to suppress the subconscious warning bells that expression was setting off in the back of his head; as much as he liked Paige, if she was thinking of doing something to hurt Angel...

"I dunno..." Paige began, looking awkwardly around the room for a moment as she tried to find the words. "I mean, did I ever tell you that Angel's pretty much the longest relationship I've ever had, even if you assume that we 'broke up' during the period when he was Angelus?"

"Really?" Doyle said, looking at her in surprise. "You mean a good-lookin' girl like you-?"

"I mean, I _dated_ , don't get me wrong, but none of the guys... well, I never really _clicked_ with them, know what I mean?" Paige clarified, before she took a brief glance at the room around her before she leaned over to address Doyle in a lower voice. "Actually... well, Angel reverted to Angelus around the point where I normally stop dating the guy; it's-"

"One of those freaky coincidences that people really don't allow themselves to think of as coincidences?" Doyle finished for her, even as he knew that the hopeful expression on his face was pointless.

"I dunno..." Paige said, sighing in frustration at herself. "I mean, I _love_ Angel, don' get me wrong, but... well, we met when I'd just found out I was a witch, he had the whole 'man of mystery' thing going for a while, and then..."

"And then you found out how he felt about you and liked the idea of a boyfriend who _could_ cope with the supernatural crap you'd landed yourself in?" Doyle finished, wishing that he could be like Cole in the pre-Source days and just shimmer out of this kind of awkward conversation; he was _really_ not liking where this conversation was going...

"Well... kinda, yeah," Paige replied, looking awkwardly at Doyle, suddenly wishing that she had a better way to phrase what she was trying to say at the moment. "Look, I know that you're Angel's guide first, but I... well, I think of you as a friend too, and it's not that I _don't_ love him- he's kind, brave, handsome, smart, and he's got the whole sexy brooding thing going down-, but I just don't _know_ if... y'know..."

A sudden knock on the door prompted the half-Brachen and the witch to look at the door, where a young woman with long curly blonde hair dressed in a peach-coloured blouse.

"Uh... hi," Paige said, standing up from behind the desk; maybe an interruption would give her more time to figure out what she wanted to say right now. "Angel Investigations; can we... help you?"

"Hey, Francis," the woman said, nodding at Doyle.

"Harry," Doyle said, nodding awkwardly at the woman.

"Francis?" Paige repeated, looking at Doyle in surprise (She'd always assumed that 'Doyle' was a last name rather than a first, but she definitely hadn't been expecting the first name to be something like _that_ ). "Your first name's _Francis_?"

"Uh... where've you been?" Doyle asked, a brief nod in Paige's direction the only sign that he'd heard her exclamation.

"Around," Harry replied. "Kiribati, Togo, Uzbekistan... a few spots that were a... little less touristy..."

"Sorry to be rude, but who _are_ you?" Paige asked, looking urgently between Doyle and the new arrival.

"Paige," Doyle said, looking awkwardly at the half-Whitelighter, "this is Harry. My wife."

Paige could only blink at that new information.

Doyle was _married_?

"I'm sorry about the surprise," Harry said as she walked in and closed the door. "I would've called first, but I was afraid-"

"I'd run off?" Doyle finished. "That's not my style, remember?"

"But it's mine?" Harry interjected. "Is that what you're saying? Do you want me to remind you who fired the starter pistol?"

Before Doyle could respond, Harry shook her head. "No, let's not, okay? Let's just hug and be happy to see each other."

After an awkward hug- Paige was becoming increasingly uncertain if she should be here or if she should leave the room to give them some privacy-, the two separated once again, Doyle crossing his arms as they looked awkwardly at each other.

"You look good," Harry said at last.

"You too," Doyle responded in a non-committed manner.

"You're still living it up?" Harry asked. "You know that drinking's no good for you."

"Yeah, you know me," Doyle said. "I'm a fun-loving guy."

"What's going on?" Angel asked, walking up the stairs from his basement flat to the main office (Paige hoped that her boyfriend had only just gotten back; the last thing she wanted was for him to have overheard that she was having doubts before she could figure out what they _were_ ).

"Angel," she said, smiling as warmly at him as she could with her current train of thought, "this is Harry; Doyle's wife."

"Nice to meet you," Angel said, shaking her hand with no sign of surprise (Paige briefly wondered if he'd already known, but pushed that thought aside quickly enough).

"Hi," Harry replied. "Cool offices."

"Yeah, I'm a private investigator now," Doyle said, gesturing at the other two with a slight smile. "This is my company, and these two, uhm, are my helpers."

"Uh..." Paige began, before she realised that contradicting Doyle would probably just make an already difficult situation even more awkward and looked uncertainly at Harry. "So, you and Doyle were married?"

"Were and still, according to the paperwork," Harry clarified, looking at Doyle with a slight smile. "It was a 'madly in love couldn't live without each other' kind of thing, but I guess times change, because here we are, four years later and living just fine."

"So," Doyle said, shrugging slightly, evidently unwilling to have this discussion even if he also recognised that he had to, "shall we go on to why you're here exactly?"

"Maybe we could talk alone?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Doyle began, before another man with a face that Paige could only describe as 'bland' poked his head through the office door.

"I thought you were going to stay in the car?" Harry asked, turning to look at the other man.

"I know," the new arrival said, closing the door behind him as he walked into the office, "but- I admit it, curiosity got the better of me."

With that, he shook Angel's hand, a broad smile on his face as he glanced between Angel and Harry. "Hey, Richard Straley. I've heard so much about you. Say, you left out the part about him being such a handsome fellow."

"I'm not-" Angel began.

"Oh no, you are!" Straley said with a reassuring smile. "Really!"

"I'm not Doyle," Angel countered, indicating the Irishman in question. "He is."

"Oh, _that's_ more like it," Straley said, nodding briefly before he realised what he'd just said. "Not that you're not a very good-looking man-"

"Richard, just shake his hand," Harry said, shaking her head in frustration.

"Ah, forgive me," Straley said, shrugging awkwardly. "I'm not quite myself, what with the wedding only a few days off now-"

"There's a wedding?" Doyle said, looking sharply at Harry.

"I wasn't supposed to say that yet, was I?" Straley asked, looking awkwardly at the woman in question.

"Uh, Paige?" Angel said, looking sharply at her. "maybe you should check in with your sisters; I think Piper mentioned something about them... interviewing for nannies, right?"

"Yeah, point; might as well give my input for the person who'll be responsible for keeping an eye on my niece, after all," Paige said, nodding slightly awkwardly at Straley and Harry. "Nice meeting you, but, y'know, gotta... go."

She didn't know precisely what was going on here, but most of her obvious thoughts weren't encouraging, and she already knew that Doyle wouldn't want too many people to be here if most of them were correct...

* * *

  
As she reappeared in the mansion's kitchen, Paige was briefly surprised at the sight of Piper cleaning the room- her pregnancy might not be _that_ far along, but Leo and Phoebe were still trying to encourage her to take it easy-, but swiftly pushed that concern aside; there was no point getting all 'panicky aunt' just because Piper was being herself.

"Everything going OK here?" she asked, smiling slightly at Piper as her older sister jumped and turned to look at her.

"Oh, it's just you," she said with a relieved smile.

"'Just' me?" Paige repeated, looking at her sister in mock indignation (She guessed that Piper was relieved that she wasn't one of the potential nannies, but after growing up without sisters she felt she was entitled to enjoy the chance to joke around with them).

"Yeah, I'm still trying to clean up for the nannies; the best won't work for slobs," Piper clarified.

"We're not slobs!" Paige said indignantly.

"Oh yeah?" Piper replied, pausing and leaning on the central island to look at Paige. "How come I spent all night cleaning potions stains off of the ceiling?"

"That's gazpacho, not potion," Paige mock-whispered at her sister (She really should see about spending more time at Angel's flat; he was at least a bit more understanding about the occasional demon-fighting-related damage their residences could sustain).

"Well, you know what?" Piper said with a frustrated shrug. "Blenders have lids."

"Piper, you need to relax, OK?" Paige said, trying to sound reassuring.

"I will relax when Leo gets here," Piper responded as she began to fold a dish-towel. "We haven't had a chance to prepare-"

"What's to prepare?" Paige interrupted; Piper had enough to worry about without convincing herself that there were more problems to deal with. "You're a Charmed One, your reputation precedes you."

"Oh, you mean how evil barges in here all hours of the day and night hell bent on killing us?" Piper asked sarcastically. "Not exactly an ideal working environment."

Paige was saved from trying to come up with a comforting response when Leo orbed in beside his wife, smiling warmly at the two of them.

"Oh, _finally_ ," Piper said, as she and her husband shared a brief hug. "I was afraid that the Elders drummed up one of their 'it can't wait' assignments."

The look Leo gave her in response to that statement was something that Paige had no trouble translating.

"Can't it wait?" Piper asked, frustration evident in her voice.

"No, it can't wait," Leo replied apologetically, before he looked over at Paige with a slight smile. "But the assignment's not for me, it's for Paige; you're getting your first charge."

"Are you serious?" Paige asked, unable to stop the broad grin on her face at what Leo had just revealed; she might be more interested in the variety of activities presented by her witch career, but it would be nice to explore her Whitelighter side as well.

"Well, the Elders aren't known for their sense of humour," Leo pointed out

"This is great!" Paige said, grinning broadly at the thought. "I am now Paige Matthews, Whitelighter-Witch. I'm a hyphenate."

"Wait a minute, since when are you psyched about Whitelighter duty?" Piper asked, narrowing her eyes as she looked at her sister. "And on that topic, what about Angel Investigations; aren't you kind of meant to be on call there for any witch-related duties?"

"Eh, I think we're taking a couple of days off there- Doyle's ex-wife just dropped in-" Paige began.

"Doyle was married?" Leo said, looking at Paige in surprise.

"Oh, right; only just found out when she showed up, and it kinda looked like she had something she wanted to talk with Doyle about on his own..." Paige said, looking momentarily awkwardly at her sister and brother-in-law before she shrugged and tried to smile at Leo again. "Anyway, on a cheerier, less relationship-focused topic, who's my charge? Whitelighter-to-be? Philanthropist? Doctor?"

"Not exactly," Leo said, a slightly awkward expression on his face.

"Oh, wait, don't tell me," she said, holding up her hands as inspiration struck her. "It's a young girl, a witch, she's just coming into her powers... oh my god, I can _totally_ relate to that!"

"You ramble when you're excited," Piper noted, a slight smile crossing her older sister's face. "Trying to make up for your boyfriend's lack of small talk?"

"Sorry," Paige said, shrugging awkwardly before she processed what else Piper had said. "And on Angel's behalf, I say 'hey'; he's getting better at that kinda thing."

"All I can tell you about your charge is that he's a good man who's lost his way," Leo said, pushing the Angel-related conversation to the side for the moment

"And why is that all you can tell her?" Piper asked.

"Because the Elders want Paige to figure the rest out for herself," Leo responded.

"What is it with these Higher Powers and being vague?" Piper asked, rolling her eyes as she looked over at Paige. "We've got Phoebe's visions, Doyle's visions and a pretty much _direct_ link to the Elders via you, and they _still_ feel the need to avoid giving us clear explanations for what they want us to do?"

"Your charge's name is Samuel," Leo continued, clearly recognising that there was nothing helpful he could say to curb Piper's frustration and deciding not to bother.

"Samuel," Paige repeated, nodding as she turned the name over in her mind. "Good, strong biblical name. Okay, where do I find him?"

"The Elders aren't sure, but they think that you should be able to sense his location," Leo answered.

"So, wait a minute..." Piper put in, holding up a hand uncertainly, "if the Elders have lost track of him, why did they suddenly think Paige can find him?"

"You know, I _do_ help run a detective agency-" Paige pointed out.

"Which acquired its license thanks to Darryl pulling a few strings- and it's your _boyfriend_ whose name's on that particular bit of paper anyway-; I don't exactly think that counts," Piper countered.

"Well, the Elders have complete faith in Paige's ability, and so do I," Leo said. "All we have to do is trust that they know what they're doing."

"Exactly!" Paige said, smiling gratefully at Leo- she didn't want to think too much about the way he'd answered the question without really _answering_ it; she had a job and she'd worry about the rest later- before she turned to look at Piper. "Look, just don't worry about it; you clean up around here, Leo and I'll see what we can do to find Samuel before the interview, and I'll call Angel if I need any help on that front after the nannies get here."

She just hoped that it wouldn't come to that; asking Angel for a favour when she was thinking of... doing _something_ with their relationship- she wasn't ready to consider it 'breaking up' when she still didn't really _know_ how she was feeling towards him- seemed a bit insensitive...

* * *

  
"Why is it," Paige muttered reflectively as she found herself walking through an alley a couple of hours later, Leo close behind her, "that ever since I became a witch, I've found myself spending most of my working hours in alleys?"

"Demons don't exactly use the public streets-" Leo began.

"Rhetorical question, Leo; forget it," Paige said, looking back at him in brief frustration before she sighed and turned her attention back to avoiding the puddles around her. "So, I guess I'm not looking for a wealthy philanthropist here, huh?"

"I told you, he's a lost soul in need of saving," Leo commented.

"Tell me about it; this looks like the kind of place Angel would've hung out in back in the eighties..." Paige muttered, before she realised what she'd just said and looked urgently over at Leo. "Uh, look, you didn't-"

"He already mentioned that part of his life to me a while back," Leo said reassuringly. "Don't worry; I won't mention it to Piper or Phoebe."

"Huh?" Paige said, wondering if she should feel hurt about that; it wasn't that she didn't want Angel to have a life outside of the time he spent with her, but she'd always kind of assumed that _she_ was the only person he trusted enough to share that part of his life with...

"Well, he, Doyle and I were out for a few drinks with Darryl after one of his last cases, and it... came up in conversation," Leo said, shrugging slightly awkwardly. "He didn't say _why_ he was in the streets back then-"

"You don't want to know," Paige interrupted- it had taken her a while to learn how Angel had reached that point herself, and while she'd assured him that he wasn't to blame for giving into his urges like that, it still wasn't a pleasant topic-, before she turned her attention back to the matter at hand. "Still, at least my cover won't be an issue."

"Your cover?" Leo repeated.

"Social worker," Paige clarified. "I mean, I can't say that I was hired as a detective to find him by somebody because I don't know who'd want to find him from his life, so that would probably be my best bet, right?"

"In this case, I don't think you're going to need a cover," Leo commented.

"In this case?" Paige repeated, looking pointedly at Leo; she acknowledged that nobody was going to keep a 'Cole-is-the-Source'-level secret from her again, but that didn't mean she had to like learning that people weren't telling her everything.

"Well, every case is different," Leo said in a noncommittal manner

"OK, y'know what?" Paige said, turning around to look directly at Leo. "I already have _one_ guy in my life who does the cryptic thing; I don't need another-"

She broke off her speech mid-sentence as she suddenly felt a strong tingle in the back of her mind and the base of her throat; it felt a bit like a variation of the times she'd practised her sensing abilities on Angel or her sisters, but this felt... _different_ , somehow.

"I feel something..." she said, shivering slightly as she tried to get a better handle on this new impression. "I think he's close."

"You're sensing him?" Leo asked, looking at her urgently.

"No," Paige corrected him, shaking her head slightly as she started to walk along the alley, the sensation shifting from the back of her head to the front even as she walked around the corner. "It's more like a... a magnetic pull..."

Just as she took in the sight of the door in front of her, the illuminated sign beside it suggesting at the presence of a tavern of some kind on the other side, the pull she'd only just noticed suddenly re-focused itself as a grey-haired man in a brown jacket was thrown through the door to land at Paige's feet.

"And stay out!" the large, dark-haired man who was probably the tavern bartender said, pointing a firm finger at the man Paige was forced to accept was definitely Samuel before he closed the door.

"Good luck," Leo said, patting Paige on the shoulder before he orbed out; evidently the nanny interviews took priority over this current mess, although Paige had to wonder at Leo's timing as Samuel coughed twice before throwing up on her shoes.

"This is just great..." she muttered, rolling her eyes as she walked around to the side before crouching down to check her apparent charge over; maybe if she could find some kind of ID on him, she could figure out where he was meant to live...

* * *

  
A short while later, Paige walked into the small apartment whose address had been scrawled on a piece of paper in Samuel's pocket- the bitter part of her mind couldn't help but think of it as the equivalent of 'If Found, Please Return To:' notes you found on some small objects-, quickly forming an even lower impression of her new charge at the basic, sloppy nature of the place; the man didn't seem to have anything in here apart from the bed, a table, and a couch, with no trace of books or a television that he could use for leisure purposes, which suggested that he spent his time drinking or unconscious.

The only good thing about this place was that it was within walking distance of the tavern where she'd found him; it made it a hell of a lot easier to get him home without orbing...

"You're strong, for a girl," Samuel muttered, as Paige practically dropped him on the bed near the door.

"Thanks, I think," Paige muttered- she got enough compliments about her physical prowess from Angel, and that was enough for her right now-, as she took in her surroundings in a vain attempt to try and find something she could use to connect to this guy. "Well, here we are; home sweet home."

"It's a dump," Samuel muttered.

"No!" Paige said; she might agree with the assessment, but she was pretty sure one of her first duties as a Whitelighter was to help the charge feel better about his life. "It's... shabby chic."

"It's a shabby dump," Samuel repeated, as he lay down on the bed, staring up at a ceiling that was so bleak the sight of it would do little to improve anyone's mood.

"Well," Paige said, trying to ignore the large amount of bottles arrayed near the kitchen sink- she did _not_ want to think too much about the evidence of what this guy did with his spare time-, "how about some coffee?"

"How about you leave me alone?" Samuel countered.

"Maybe you... just wanna talk?" Paige asked, shrugging awkwardly after a quick examination of the surroundings revealed only an empty kettle and no sign of anything in the way of coffee beans; she'd always thought that she'd been tricky to talk to after learning that she was a witch, but at least she'd actually _wanted_ answers. "You know, I am a _really_ good listener..."

"What part of 'alone' don't you understand?" Samuel practically yelled at her.

"OK, maybe some other time," Paige said (Seriously, this guy did _not_ want to be helped...).

"But if you need help of any variety," she added, pulling out one of the Angel Investigations business cards she kept with her- it wasn't like it explicitly _said_ it was a card for a detective agency; an angel could be a symbol for a community outreach program or something like that, after all- and holding it out to him, "just call this number and I'll be there, okay? I'll be... right there to help you."

"I can't believe the Elders finally tracked me down, with a novice no less..." Samuel muttered, laughing to himself even as he took the offered card.

"Wait a second; you _know_?" Paige said, her eyes widening in indignation at this discovery; secrecy was one thing, but Leo could have _mentioned_ that Samuel knew about magic...

"A little advice, you need to work up a cover," Samuel said, looking at her with an expression of what could only be described as amused exasperation. "Didn't you read the Whitelighter manual?"

"There's a manual?" Paige asked (She was so stunned that she forgot to protest that she'd been trying to introduce the social work angle with the card; she'd talk with Leo about cover-development tips later).

"I can't believe the Elders sent a newbie out after me..." Samuel repeated.

"Well," Paige countered- she'd dealt with Angelus; she wasn't going to be put by some drunken mess whose only problem seemed to be a bad attitude-, "I can't believe the Elders saddled me with a cranky old drunk as my first charge."

"You got spunk," Samuel muttered as he stumbled off the bed, laughing slightly as he waved a finger in her face. "I like that."

As though that compliment had exhausted his 'nice' quota, he walked past her and began to stagger towards the sink. "Now go away."

"No, I will _not_ go away!" Paige yelled, glaring at Samuel as he turned to look at her. "I may be new at this but I was sent here to guide and protect you and that is exactly what I'm going to do. Like it or not!"

Whether or not Paige's point was supported by the subsequent appearance of a Darklighter in Samuel's room, she didn't know, but this wasn't the time to worry about that kind of thing; utilising her combat training, she dived into action, kicking the Darklighter's crossbow out of his hands before she grabbed Samuel- clearly any thought of posing as a well-meaning mortal was out, which at least gave her more options- and orbed out...

* * *

  
As she reappeared in the manor's conservatory, Paige tried not to jump at the sight of a short, big-eared, green-eyed elf in the room; Piper and Leo must be going through some interesting channels in their search for nannies, but at least it meant she wouldn't have to explain herself.

"Darklighter, incoming!" Paige yelled, barely managing to register the pointed stare that passed between Piper and the elf- clearly Paige had chosen a rather poor time to arrive-, before the sound of the Darklighter reappearing prompted her to try and haul Samuel to the ground, only for the older man to remain standing long enough to get an arrow in his shoulder before Piper managed to destroy his weapon.

" _Damnit_!" Paige muttered, only just registering the moments when the Darklighter and the elf left the room even as Phoebe hurried into it, her attention focused on the implications of the arrow in the shoulder of the man before her. "Y'know, Leo, you _could_ have told me he was a Whitelighter; it doesn't _exactly_ give a good impression when I didn't even know _that_ when talking to the guy!"

"Look, you need to calm down-" Leo began.

"OK, you know what?" Paige said, stepping back slightly as she looked scathingly at Leo, noting Piper and Phoebe exchanging anxious glances that did little to improve her current mood. "I had enough _crap_ to deal with due to people not telling me stuff last year before I broke Angel's curse, so I am _going_ to take a time out and go somewhere where I might be able to get some straight answers to my questions; just... get that arrow out of him and I'll get back to you later, OK?"

Running might not be the best solution, but her sisters could keep an eye on Samuel until she got back; right now, she had to see how things were going back at the agency before she tried to hit her charge out of frustration at his apparent inability to accept that he needed help.


	23. Witches, Demons and Bachelor Parties

Even as she appeared in Angel's office, it didn't take the sight of Angel and Doyle sitting grimly around a desk as Doyle stared at an old book and a more modern folder laid out in front of him- along with a distinctive bottle of Scotch that must have come from Angel's cupboards; he kept food around to be social even if he couldn't really appreciate it himself, and Doyle didn't drink that kind of stuff regularly- for her to realise that something bad had gone down in this part of her life as well.

"Uh... I take it things with Harry went awkwardly?" she asked at last, as the two turned to look at her, Doyle looking dejected while Angel just looked sympathetically at their co-worker.

"Could say that," Doyle confirmed with a nod. "That Richard guy's her fiancé- Harry wants me to sign the papers to make everything _legally_ final-, but turns out he's a demon-"

"He's a _what_?" Paige said, looking with renewed intensity at her boyfriend and friend. "What the Hell are we doing sitting here-?"

"He's an Ano-Movic demon- basically one of Doyle's class of demon rather than Cole's; no magic and only somewhat-above-human-average strength- and despite some violent leanings in the past, they seem to be fully integrated into human society," Angel interrupted, his usual level tone instantly making Paige feel like an overly-paranoid idiot. "Richard and his family actually own a successful chain of restaurants in Los Angeles, and, according to Harry, they're thinking about setting up a branch or two over here."

"Oh," Paige said, smiling awkwardly at the two men as she slipped into a chair alongside their own, hoping that neither of them would resent her jumping to conclusions like that. "So... not something we need to slay, huh?"

"Only thing worth killin' here is me fer bein' so stupid as to let her go in the first place," Doyle said, sighing awkwardly as he looked over at Paige, the grim expression on his face so sullen that Paige was briefly reminded of Samuel before she pushed the comparison away; at least Doyle actually _wanted_ to talk about what was bothering him. "Always thought my demon half was what drove Harry away- figured that all her talk about what a great chance this was for us back then was just her trying to humour me-, and in the end..."

He took a quick swig from the scotch before he put the bottle down again, his attention returning to the papers before him. "In the end, _I_ was the only reason she left..."

"Uh... sorry; can I just clarify something here?" Paige asked, looking uncertainly at Doyle; somehow, whether it was because Cole had set an uncomfortable precedent or just because he'd never shown much interest in talking himself, Doyle's past was a topic that had never come up before now. "You... didn't _know_ you were part-demon when you got married?"

"Dad was the demon," Doyle explained, a solemn expression on his face as he sat at the table. "He left 'fore I was born- never sure if he even knew I existed, t'be honest- and my mum... well, she figured she'd wait to see if I'd got his genes before she got all confessional."

"Ah," Paige said, nodding in otherwise silent understanding.

It might not exactly be the same as what Doyle had been through- her father was an angel and she _knew_ why he and Patty Halliwell had left her now, even if she still thought it sucked that the guy had never bothered to get back in contact, while Doyle's was a demon who could have left him for a wide variety of reasons-, but she could still sympathise with the guy for having an unexpected heritage just dropped on him like this.

"Harry an' I weren't even twenty when we got married- crazy about each other-, and when things go wrong and you're young like that, you don't just say 'Hey, thanks for the blender, I wish you well'," Doyle continued, before he sighed in frustration. "All went up in my face when Dad's genes finally kicked in..."

"Which was...?" Paige asked uncertainly.

"When I was twenty-one and we were talking about kids of our own," Doyle replied, shaking his head slightly as he reflected on the past. "Put a damper on _that_ discussion, you can imagine."

"Harry mentioned that she tried to get you to see it as... well, as an opportunity," Angel put in, looking at Doyle with that awkward expression that Paige had always found to be kind of cute in a weird, Angel-esque manner; he wanted to say something, but just wasn't sure if he should.

"Yeah, she went on about this whole big new world that my demon side opened up for us- tried to get me go out, meet other demons, that kinda thing-, and... well, running into the kind of things we've dealt with when I tried going out at first, it any wonder that I had a low opinion of that side of myself starting out?" Doyle asked, looking grimly over at Paige.

"Hey," Paige said, reaching over to pat Doyle reassuringly on the shoulder. "You might be a screw-up, but you're _our_ screw-up, Doyle; we're not going to kick you out just because you're not entirely human, OK?"

"I get that _now_ , but then..." Doyle said, sighing as he stared at the book lying on the table in front of them- evidently the text Angel had used to look up the Ano-Movic clan-, one hand on his forehead as he looked dejectedly at the text. "All those times that Harry would go on about what an amazing thing my demon half could be, the worlds that it opened up to us, I thought she was just trying to make me feel better about bein' part monster... but it was true, an' I just wasn't listening."

"We all screw up in relationships, Doyle-" Angel began, trying to sound encouraging.

"Not like this," Doyle said, shaking his head as he looked up at his friends. "You an' Paige have _some_ issues with what ye both are, but you don't let it _define_ you as people; I got so caught up in hating my demon that... well, I lost everything that made it worth being _human_..."

He sighed again as he looked back at the papers in front of him, swallowing awkwardly as he picked up a pen. "Harry didn't leave because of the demon in me... she left because of me."

There really wasn't anything that Paige could say to that; Doyle was clearly depressed enough right now, and she couldn't think of anything to add to the conversation that would actually be _helpful_ at this point.

God... sometimes relationships were just _not_ worth the effort...

* * *

  
"Thank you, Doyle," Harry said, shaking her ex-husband's hand as she accepted the now-signed divorce papers the following morning; Doyle was still feeling depressed about how things had turned out, but was at least able to move past the initial dejection to do what had to be done.

Paige wasn't sure if she should really be there, but Doyle had requested that her and Angel be present for possible emotional support, and quite frankly she was grateful for an excuse to get away from the confused mess that was the manor right now. Samuel had vanished while she was away talking with Angel and Doyle the previous night, and Piper, Phoebe and Leo all seemed to be fairly resolute about keeping quiet about what had happened after she'd left apart from trying to help her track down that Darklighter that had nearly attacked him.

Paige knew that she should show more concern about the loss of her first charge so quickly, but she'd already tried and failed to make an impression on Samuel; if the guy didn't _want_ to be helped, there wasn't much that she could do about it, particularly not when her friend needed her and was actually willing to admit to it.

"You don't know how much this means to me..." Straley said, shaking Doyle's hand before he looked slightly apologetically at the other man. "Or, I guess you do, seeing as you were married once, and to Harry no less".

"Do you have a copier?" Harry asked, evidently sensing that Straley's words were doing little to improve her now-ex-husband's mood. "I could..."

"Yeah, there's one in Angel's office," Doyle said briefly. "Paige'll help you."

With Angel currently reading in the basement, Paige just turned and followed Harry into the office; Doyle wasn't one to give orders/suggestions like that even when he was in a bad mood, so if he wanted her to leave it was probably for a good reason.

"This is perfect," Harry said, turning to look at Paige after she had put the divorce papers in the copier and set the device to scan. "Richard wanted a moment alone with Doyle to ask him to his bachelor party."

"Bachelor party?" Paige repeated in surprise. "Uh... no offence, but wouldn't inviting your fiancé's ex to a bachelor party be a little... awkward?"

"Richard and his family wanted Doyle's blessing before he marries me," Harry explained, a smile on her face as she spoke. "They're sweet demons; very into good vibes all around."

"Uh... right," Paige said, wishing that she had a better response than that; she was trying, but it was still hard to think of demons as being good people when they didn't have a human parent to help 'balance out' their demonic heritage (Doyle, Angel, Leo and Cole might have assured her that such demons did exist, but it was hard to accept that given her track record so far).

"You know," Harry added, looking curiously at her, "his mom told me to invite friends to my shower, but I've been pretty much hanging only with her; you're the first girl I've met in town under three hundred and seventy years old. Do you think you'd want-?"

"Sure," Paige confirmed, nodding in understanding at the other woman- a good party might be just what she needed to take her mind off her failure with Samuel-, just as a thought occurred to her. "Actually, would it be OK if my sisters came along too?"

"You have sisters?" Harry said, smiling in slight surprise at her.

"Well, half-sisters, anyway; my dad had a brief relationship with their mom after she and their dad divorced..." Paige explained, shrugging slightly before she waved a hand dismissively. "Anyway, the point is, if they can come, can they... well, can they come with me?"

"Well... the more the merrier," Harry replied with a nod.

* * *

  
"Am I the _only_ one having doubts about this?" Piper asked as she sat in the kitchen, eating assorted pieces of fruit as Phoebe and Leo sat on either side of the table (She hadn't felt like making something more elaborate when she was going to be the only one in the house). "I mean, you're going to a couple of _demonic_ bachelor parties?"

"I double-checked with the Elders and everything they've heard matches what Harry told Angel and what Angel researched for himself; they're fully assimilated into our culture and their bachelor parties will involve no traditions or ritual slayings that we should be worried about," Leo said, looking reassuringly over at Piper. "Besides, if anything happens, Paige or I are there to get the others out before things get ugly."

"Y'know, if you're that paranoid, you _could_ just come along with us...?" Phoebe pointed out with a slightly teasing smile.

"Yeah, pregnant woman at a _bachelorette_ party; that's _really_ going to go down well," Piper retorted with a role of her eyes as she indicated her now-noticeable bulge. "I just don't really think it gives off the right vibe; I'm not really going to be able to _do_ anything there, so it's just not worth it."

"You're sure that you don't want me-?" Leo began.

"Hey, just because _I'm_ not going doesn't mean you shouldn't," Piper said, holding up a hand to halt Leo mid-sentence. "You've barely got any friends outside of work right now; even if you're never going to see these guys again, you are _going_ to that bachelor party so I don't have to feel like one of those wives who always demands her husband's attention even when he's got something else he wants to do."

" _Fine_..." Leo said after a few seconds of silent contemplation, before he looked over at Phoebe as another thought occurred to him. "Will you-?"

" _No_ ," Phoebe said, shaking her head in resolution.

"You don't-" Leo began.

"Know what you were going to say next?" Phoebe finished. "Leo, I get that the Samuel thing's an issue, but this isn't the time to worry about that; Paige and Angel have enough on their plates trying to help Doyle, they don't need to have to worry about the fact that we just rediscovered Paige's long-lost dad and he's got _no_ interest in spending time with her... which I still kind of blame you guys for, by the way-"

"Look, Sam had already made up his mind not to come back with us; if you think we can somehow convince him not to orb away if we tried to _force_ him to do anything, be my guest," Piper countered, shaking her head in exasperation. "If Leo couldn't get through to him, and he won't even _try_ to listen to Paige, we're not going to get anywhere else any time soon; since Paige is more focused on this stuff with Doyle right now, we might as well just take a break and get back to that issue when we can spare the time to do so..."

After a moment of contemplation, Phoebe sighed.

" _Fine_..." she muttered, shaking her head before she looked at her sister. "But I'm telling you this right now; if Paige keeps on pushing for answers, I am _going_ to give them to her eventually."

"Just don't give the answers to her _immediately_ , and I can work with that," Piper said, nodding in acceptance of her sister's ultimatum; she wanted Paige and Sam to have a chance to talk as much as anyone, but this definitely wasn't the time to try and push that particular issue. "In the meantime, you both have fun with the rest; I'll just sit here and let our baby gestate in peace..."

* * *

  
"Hey, Francis!" Richard said as he greeted the half-demon Irishman at the door of the restaurant where the bachelor party was taking place- apparently the Straleys had recently brought the place as a possible location for a San Francisco branch of their restaurant chain- walking over from where he had been talking with who Angel and Leo presumed were some of his relatives to give the smaller man an enthusiastic hug.

"Doyle," Doyle corrected him, looking uncomfortably up at the ceiling as Straley pattered him on the back.

"Oh, sorry, sorry," Straley said, stepping away from Doyle before he turned to address the rest of the room, one arm around Doyle's shoulder. "Everyone, this is Doyle."

"And he brought someone!" another person said from a nearby table, prompting Straley to glance behind Doyle, his smile only slightly faltering when he saw Angel and Leo standing behind the other man.

"Angel!" he said, throwing off his brief uncertainty with an at-least-partly-convincing smile. "Hey, this is a surprise!"

"Yeah, I thought I'd use the door this time," Angel said, in what was probably his awkward attempt at a joke.

"I invited them to come; hope that's OK," Doyle said by means of clarification as he looked over at the Ano-Movic demon. "Ye already know Angel, an' this is Leo; he... works with us at the agency."

"Hey, it's fine," Straley said, shrugging slightly awkwardly before he smiled at them in an almost over-enthusiastic manner. "Now the party can really start, huh? Everybody," he continued, turning to address the rest of the room as he walked forward with an arm on Doyle's shoulder, "this party is for Doyle as much as it is for me. More, even; he's the real bachelor here."

"Yeah, and thanks for not rubbing that in, by the way," Doyle muttered.

As Richard and Doyle walked over to the bar, Angel and Leo glanced at each other for a moment before shrugging and walking after them, briefly pausing near a table to listen into a conversation that was definitely not in English.

"Anything?" Angel asked his friend in a low voice, after the speakers had noticed that they were being listened to and fell silent until the other two men had moved on.

"I heard what they were saying, but I couldn't quite understand it; demonic languages aren't something I was given the ability to translate," Leo said, shrugging slightly awkwardly as he looked back at the vampire. "I mean, most of the demons who'd go after our charges tend to use modern languages, and the more physical demons generally avoid witches who might keep their own language..."

"It's probably nothing, anyway," Angel said, shrugging the comment off as he and Leo sat down at the bar just as Richard shared a toast with Doyle; the vampire caught something about Richard asking Doyle about Harry, but tried to draw his attention away from that as he focused on his drink.

* * *

  
"So, you and Doyle got married at eighteen?" Phoebe asked, looking at Harry with a slight smile while privately trying to determine if she should be shocked or moved at the idea of someone feeling so passionately for someone else at that age that they would get married back then.

"Yeah, it was a whole wild passionate thing..." Harry said, smiling slightly before she shook her head wistfully at the memory. "I mean, it was a bit problematic even before he reacted to the demon thing- I liked the way he took charge at first-"

"Doyle took charge?" Phoebe said, looking at her new friend in surprise.

"It was sweet," Harry said, smiling slightly wistfully at the memory as she took a few scoops of salad from the buffet table. "But after a while... I mean, I know how to cut my own meat, thanks; sometimes it felt like I was one of his students."

Phoebe blinked.

"Hold on; _Doyle_ had _students_?" she said, unable to fully believe what she'd just heard. "As in, he was a _teacher_?"

"He taught third grade," Harry clarified, smiling in an amusing manner at the memory as she walked around to the other side of the table. "He got his teaching credentials before we even met at the food bank."

"OK, _that_ sounds like the Doyle we know..." Paige began, before she shook her head as Harry looked back at her. "You're going to tell us that he ran it, aren't you?"

"He just volunteered," Harry confirmed, shaking her head in understanding at the sisters' scepticism; Paige wondered how she felt about what had happened to Doyle as a person since the two of them had parted company, but quickly concluded that it wasn't something she should ask about.

"Come on, girls," one of the older women at the party said, looking over at Harry, Paige and Phoebe with a disturbingly enthusiastic smile, "it's pornographic pictionary time!"

The glance that Phoebe exchanged with Paige was enough to confirm her thoughts; Paige was just as surprised and embarrassed at the others' enthusiasm for such a fundamentally stupid pastime as she was.

"Their ways are... _not_ our ways," Harry said, looking apologetically at the two sisters with a slightly amused smile.

Exchanging glances with each other, Paige wondered if she should just try and get out now before things became too frustrating; she'd come to a bachelorette party to have a bit of _fun_ after a crappy day at work, not to draw some stupid pictures...

* * *

  
Outside the bar where Doyle, Angel and Leo were drinking alongside their demonic hosts to celebrate the events that were scheduled to take place in the next few days, nobody noticed the figure clad in leather carrying a crossbow, crouching on the ground to stare in through a window, his gaze fixed on Leo as he flexed his fingers where they held onto his weapon in anticipation.

He might still be interesting in his original target, but if he played his cards right- and if he was correct about why the Brachen was here; Ano-Movic customs were relatively secret from the general public, but some of his masters were _always_ aware of what these people did in their spare time-, he might just be able to catch them off-guard later.

It might take time, but the chance to take out three or four Whitelighters- it was debatable whether a half-Whitelighter counted as a full one or if he should consider the youngest sister and that unborn kid he could 'sense' in the oldest's womb as separate Whitelighters or put them together to make one- would make all that effort worthwhile...


	24. Ritual of Consumption

As Doyle sat at the bar, Leo drinking alongside him while Angel wandered around the area- not that Doyle could blame him; Angel was really more of a 'man of action' guy who had trouble just sitting around when moving was an option, where Leo was more used to sitting and waiting for stuff-, he wondered how he let himself get roped into these things; he supposed that Richard was a nice enough guy, but the man was just so... _bland_ at times it was so goddamn frustrating...

"I have a confession to make," Richard said, his slightly awkward tone somehow overshadowing the yells of the other family members who appeared to be waiting for the stripper- judging by the calls of 'where is she?'-, drawing Doyle's attention back to him. "Ever since I learned that Harry was married before, I've felt like I've been living in your shadow."

"Really?" Doyle said, looking at Richard in surprise.

"You were something... I can never be for her," Richard said, pointing affirmatively at Doyle. "Her first."

He paused for a moment as he turned his attention to the bar in front of him, looking awkwardly at his drink for a moment before he continued speaking. "She'll always love you, Francis. Always."

Doyle wasn't sure he should feel touched or disturbed at the idea of Harry's new husband giving him this kind of compliment; after the mess they'd been in when their relationship had ended, he was surprised even _Harry_ liked him at all any more, never mind Richard.

"But she needs different things now," Richard said; Doyle wished he could shake off the metaphorical pain he felt at this slight 'jab' at the reminder of how their relationship had failed, but this wasn't the time to focus on that kind of thing. "I know I can make her happy... but I need you to be a part of it."

"Me?" Doyle said, looking at Richard in confusion.

"I have to have your blessing, Doyle," Richard said, placing a hand on his shoulder as he looked solemnly at the other man. "Without it, there won't be any marriage."

"It's time, dude!" another family member said, coming over to take Richard out of his seat and lead him over to a chair in the middle of the room, Richard making half-hearted protests as a woman in a skimpy blue bikini-esque thing who was obviously the stripper he'd heard mentioned earlier.

There were times when Doyle really wondered why he had bothered helping Angel connect with people outside the Halliwells; when it meant having to cope with things like this, people were _not_ worth the effort...

"You OK?" Angel asked as he sat down on Doyle's left, Leo taking up position on Doyle's other side.

"Yeah," Doyle muttered, nodding briefly at the vampire. "It's just... it's so damn _hard_... to let go, you know."

"I was married before Piper," Leo said suddenly.

" _What_?" Doyle said, looking sharply over at the Whitelighter.

"Her name was Lillian," Leo said, smiling briefly at the memory. "We were married before I went off to war, but after I became a Whitelighter... well, obviously, it couldn't work any more; she was just a mortal, and back then I was forbidden to form those kind of relationships with anyone, even if it wasn't for the obvious problem that everyone else would have known that I was still 'alive' in some form after my regiment had _seen_ me getting blown up."

"Oh," Angel said, nodding sympathetically at Leo.

"Did you... ever see her again?" Doyle asked; he may not have spent much time with Leo outside of work, but he appreciated what the Whitelighter was trying to do right now anyway.

"Once," Leo replied. "She was having trouble coping with my death, and I was allowed to visit her in a dream to say goodbye and help her move on from it- she actually got married again after that-, but that was as far as it went. Piper visited her once when a friend did some digging into my past to find out why I hadn't mentioned her, but I didn't see her then; it... well, it would have been too awkward."

"It's never easy, is it?" Angel said, looking solemnly over at the Whitelighter.

"Moving on or letting people in?" Leo asked.

"Both," Angel said, sighing slightly as he took a brief drink. "Letting Paige in was difficult even if I _did_ want her- she was the first person since I got my soul back who made me feel like I could really _help_ someone, rather than just being an anomalous fluke of the supernatural-, and..."

"And?" Doyle asked.

"When I first got my soul back," Angel said at last, looking solemnly over at his friends, "it felt like I'd only just lost my sister, and I never even got a chance to say goodbye to her; the fact that Angelus's memories covered the hundred and fifty years between my 'death' and the restoration of my soul didn't change the fact that, as far as _I_ was concerned, I saw Kathy a few days ago and now I'd never see her again..."

"Hey..." Doyle said, looking over at Angel with a slight smile. "You didn't refer to Angelus as you."

Angel shrugged.

"After seeing the division between Cole and the Source, I figured it was time to start making a distinction between me and Angelus," he said by way of explanation. "I might consciously remember being him, but that doesn't mean I have to think of myself as being him all the time..."

His voice trailed off as he looked over at another table, his eyes quickly falling on two of the other men as they left the room.

"Something wrong?" Doyle asked.

"Just... give me a minute," Angel said, standing up and walking off to follow the recently-departed, silently manoeuvring around the group that had congregated around the stripper to head through the door. After passing through the restaurant's currently-deserted kitchen, he headed up a set of stairs towards the back of the kitchen, only to find nothing but a seemingly deserted corridor and no sign of the two men he'd followed.

"Ino platbrata iko iko retvan el shak," a voice said, prompting Angel to glance through a nearby door just in time to see an older man standing in front of a candle beside a little pot, pulling a curved knife across the palm of his hand as he finished his chant, starting to repeat himself as the cauldron flared up after the blood had been dripped into it.

Angel might not have Leo's gift for languages, but he'd spent enough time among demons to pick out some of the essential distinguishing features of various dialects, and what he was hearing was _not_ encouraging to him...

For a moment, he thought about going back and relaying what he'd just heard to Doyle and Leo, but pushed that theory aside- if it turned out to be nothing he didn't want to bother them, and if it turned out to be something he didn't want to alert their hosts to the fact that they were on to them-; if it was nothing more than the linguistics problem it seemed to be, he had another person he could ask for clarification.

Pulling out his cellphone- if he needed another reason to be grateful for Paige's presence in his life, it was her patience; he'd still be having a _ridiculous_ amount of trouble with this thing if she hadn't spent time talking him through how to work it-, Angel quickly dialled his girlfriend's number, taking a quick glance at the corridor around him to confirm that he was alone before he hit the 'Call' button.

" _Hello_?" Paige's voice said on the other end of the line after a few moments of ringing.

"It's Angel," Angel said, wishing that he had time to be more sociable; if what he'd overheard was potentially dangerous, he had to know as soon as possible. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk with Harry about something; can you put her on the line?"

" _Just a moment_..." Paige said, her voice trailing off as she moved away from the phone.

" _Hello_?" Harry said, taking over the conversation.

"How is your Aratuscan?" the vampire asked.

" _Rusty_ ," the demonologist replied, her tone clearly confused at the nature of the question, " _considering it's a dead demonic language_."

"Guess again," Angel said quickly. "I need a translation of the following: 'Ino platbrata iko iko retvan el shak'."

" _What's going on, Angel_?" Harry asked.

"I don't know yet," the vampire replied, trying not to sound impatient; he was anxious about his friend, but getting paranoid wouldn't help anything. "Will you just look into it for me?"

" _I guess_..." Harry said after a brief pause. " _I could check the family library_."

"Thanks," Angel said; it wasn't the immediate response he'd allowed a part of himself to hope for, but he had to be realistic and accept that this kind of thing was going to take time no matter how much he wanted otherwise.

As he hung up the phone, he turned around to head back to the bar, only to bump into a man he was fairly sure was one of the men he'd seen leaving earlier.

"Hey," the other man said, looking pointedly at him. "what's your problem?"

"No problem," Angel replied, trying to walk away, only for the other man to suddenly push him in the chest.

"Are you disrespecting me?" the other man asked.

"No," Angel replied, already fairly sure that something was up; this guy definitely hadn't seem this short-tempered before, and Angel didn't need vampiric senses to know that he hadn't had nearly enough to drink to account for his current attitude...

"So now I'm a liar?" the other man said, promptly hitting Angel twice in the face before Angel could retaliate.

The blows themselves weren't particularly powerful- evidently, like Doyle, thus guy sacrificed some of his natural demonic strength when he was in human form-, but the suddenness of the attack meant that it took a couple of minutes for Angel to recover enough to knock the other man back, only to find two more men grabbing his arms before he could try and leave the area. As his first attacker charged towards him, Angel kicked out at the other man's chest, only to suddenly feel a kick to his own leg that knocked him off-balance long enough for his new attackers to push him to the ground.

Even as Angel tried to get up, his attackers grabbed him and threw him into the nearest wall, kicking him in the chest as he tried to get back up. Wincing against the impact that his ribs had just sustained- not needing to breathe didn't mean that he didn't feel that kind of impact-, Angel only just managed to register that he was being picked up before he was suddenly thrown through some kind of thin wooden cover and found himself hurtling towards the street. The last thing he registered was a metal clang of some sort before his world became dark, a pain in his head the only indication that he must have hit something...

* * *

  
"Any ideas where Angel's gone?" Doyle asked, looking uncertainly over at Leo as the two men put down their last drinks.

"Not obviously..." Leo said, looking awkwardly back at Doyle. "Maybe he just decided to step outside for some fresh air? We shouldn't forget that crowds aren't exactly something he's always comfortable with..."

Further conversation on the topic of Angel's absence was cut off as the stripper finally left the bar, Richard getting up from his chair and walking back over to join the other two

"I hope Harry doesn't hear about that," the other man said, sounding genuinely embarrassed even as the rest of his family exchanged amused laughs.

"Well, it won't be from us, I can tell you that," Leo said, trying to smile encouraging at the other man as he raised his glass with a slight smile; it might not be his exact scene, but he was actually having a decent time right now.

"I second that," Doyle added.

"I know," Richard said, patting him on the shoulder again. "You're a good half-man." He paused for a moment as he looked at Doyle. "So... have you given any thought to what we discussed?"

"Yep," Doyle said, nodding contemplatively as he spoke. "And I got to tell you, I've had a lot to regret in my life, but nothing more than the way things went with me and Harry; I should have made her happy, and I didn't. And now we both have a second chance. Her to be happy, and me... not to stand in the way." He paused as he focused his gaze on Richard, clearly collecting himself for what he was about to say. "I guess what I'm trying to say to you is... that I give you my blessing, Richard."

Despite the slightly grim mood of Doyle's, Leo couldn't help but smile at his friend; after being where Doyle was himself while Dan was dating Piper, he could definitely appreciate how difficult it was to be pleasant to a man who was involved with the woman you loved, and he hadn't even had to 'let Piper go' like Doyle was having to let Harry go now.

"God bless you," Doyle said, patting Richard on the arm before he warded off the other man's attempt at a hug. "As long as we skip the hug thing."

"Hey, everyone, great news!" Richard said, turning to face the rest of the room with a smile. "Doyle gives his blessing. He consents."

Leo acknowledged that it might just have been the instincts he'd developed after working with the Charmed Ones going into 'overdrive', but he couldn't shake the idea that there was _something_ off about that last statement...

"A toast to Doyle," Richard said, cheers erupting around the room just as another group came in- through the same door that Angel had left by earlier, Leo and Doyle both noted-, and surrounded Doyle, enthusiastically repeating his name as they began to 'herd' him away from the bar.

"No hugs, now," Doyle said, even as the anxious glance he exchanged with Leo confirmed that they were sharing the same suspicion about recent events. "We had an understanding..."

His earlier confusion trailed off as the group suddenly forced Doyle down to squat in some kind of large red box with a hole in the top, sealing him in it so that his head was the only part of him still visible to the rest, the box securely locked so that he could only just squeeze a few fingers around his neck.

"What the _Hell_ -?" Leo began, standing up just in time for another demon to abruptly grab his head and ram it into the bar, the Whitelighter slumping into unconsciousness before the box was locked.

"OK, look, I get that he wasn't invited, but was Leo really _that_ bad company?" Doyle asked, straining slightly as he tried to get out of the box he'd been put in, a part of him still hoping that he was just experiencing some kind of strange prank. "Guys, look, this is great, but... I can't reach the pretzels..."

"Doyle," Richard said, in a casual tone that belied their current circumstances, "I just want to say how incredibly moved I am by your sacrifice, and I'm sorry that I had to knock Leo out to ensure he wouldn't do anything he shouldn't; I hope that doesn't make me less of a man in your eyes."

"Sacrifice?" Doyle repeated in confusion, just as the family around him shifted into their red-skinned demonic forms, a solemn expression on her faces.

"OK, _this_ can't be good," Doyle muttered, just before someone came up behind him and took a hold of his head and stuck something sharp into its side.

"OUCH!" he yelled, only to grow more apprehensive as he felt something else begin to change.

"Hey..." he said, failing in his attempts not to sound concerned about this latest development, "my head's going numb."

"Well, I should hope so!" Richard said, as another demon- Doyle didn't mean to be 'prejudiced', but when people were doing something like this he felt that he was entitled to feel a bit angry- put a lobster bib around his neck. "We wouldn't want you to suffer when we cut into your skull."

Doyle didn't need to see the large knife that Richard's family were passing to him to know that things were about to get _really_ bad...

* * *

  
"OK, that can't be right," Harry said as she studied some of the books she'd acquired from the family's library.

"What?" Phoebe asked, she and Paige standing on either of the demonologist even if they couldn't read the books themselves (Paige recalled Piper mentioning something once about Whitelighters possessing the ability to understand all languages, but either she just hadn't inherited that one or demon languages weren't covered under that 'gift'; they _really_ needed to see about finding someone with better translation skills for the agency in case this kind of thing came up again).

"According to this," Harry said, indicating the book in front of them, "what Angel overheard included something about... ingesting past love."

"Ingesting past love?" Paige repeated, looking apprehensively at Harry. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that be Doyle in your case?"

Judging by the apprehensive expression on Harry's face as she turned to walk over to the rest of the group, she didn't like the implications of that discovery any more than Paige and Phoebe did.

"Excuse me, ladies," she said, drawing their attention away from the current game.

"What is it, honey?" a woman that Paige was fairly sure had been identified as Richard's mother earlier replied.

"It's about the bachelor party," Harry replied, even if her attempt at a casual inquiry seemed relatively forced to the more practised Phoebe and Paige. "Richard said having the former husband present was some sort of tradition. I was just wondering..."

"Well," another woman Paige thought was Richard's aunt said with a joking smile, "they're certainly not going to eat your ex-husband's brains!"

"Eat _his WHAT_?" Paige and Phoebe yelled, exchanging glances before they grabbed Harry and ran out of the house, heading straight for Harry's car.

It was only after Harry had started driving that Paige realised that she could have orbed them to the destination instead, but quickly pushed that thought aside; not only did they now know the _full_ details of what Harry knew about the supernatural side of things- she wasn't sure if revealing magic to a demonologist would be breaking the rules or not, but she wasn't in the mood to have that kind of debate with herself-, but there was also the issue that she didn't know the _precise_ area that Doyle would be in right now and would therefore have no way to know she wasn't going to orb into a location where something was already standing or something like that.

Regardless of her reasons, they'd started driving now, and she was going to have to stick with her original decision and hope that Angel and Leo could buy some time and keep Doyle alive until the rest of them could get there...

* * *

  
"Damnit, Leo, _wake up_!" Doyle yelled, staring in frustration at the unconscious Whitelighter- he didn't seem to be _badly_ hurt, but there was no way to know how long he'd be out; Leo's healing abilities didn't extend to helping _himself_ wake up any faster from that kind of blow- as one of the Straleys drew a dotted line along his forehead. "Oh, God, where's Angel? _Angel_!"

"Apparently he started a fight; he had to be ejected," Richard said (Doyle was _definitely_ starting to get frustrated; how could these people sound so casual when they were planning to _kill_ him?). "Can I get you anything?"

"How are you going to explain this to Harry, huh?" Doyle asked, seizing on the most obvious potential stumbling-block in Richard's current plans.

"Oh, Harry will understand," Richard said nonchalantly (Doyle just hoped that he was wrong about that; the fact that Harry couldn't have known about this was the only thing that _really_ stopped him freaking out right now). "She loves and accepts our culture, just like loved and accepted yours."

"Nick," Richard's father suddenly said, picking up a small fork lying on top of the box that Doyle was currently sealed in, "what's this?"

"You said get a utensil," one of Richard's cousins replied, shrugging slightly as though he couldn't see the problem.

"This is a shrimp fork," Richard's father said in exasperation as he indicated the utensil in question. "He's going to eat the guy's brains with a shrimp fork?"

"Well pardon me if our ancient ancestors didn't leave behind any former-husband-brain-eating forks," Nick replied defensively.

"Get a soup spoon, you moron," the father said, with a tone of such casual exasperation that Doyle would have made a crack about the 'Monty Python' dirty fork sketch if they weren't talking about the utensil necessary to eat _his brains_...

"Bear with us," Richard said, smiling at Doyle as though his family weren't discussing their plans to eat him. "We're a little fuzzy on the etiquette. This ritual hasn't been performed in centuries; it's been so long since the last time one of the clan married a divorcee."

"Huh?" Doyle asked; he was becoming increasingly confused about what anyone here was actually up to...

"The accursed books tell us all very plainly that ingesting a priorly married prospective bride's former primary mate's fresh brains will insure a happy second marriage," Richard's father explained, as though Doyle should have known all this before entering the building. "This way, Richie can incorporate all the love you and Harry shared, making their union whole. It's an Ano-movic thing, don't ask."

"Look, Richard," Doyle said, deciding to ignore that particular issue and focus on getting out of his current situation instead, "as much as I like your family- and they're great, honest-, I'd really prefer if they _didn't_ cannibalize me."

"Oh, no!" Richard said, smiling slightly as though he'd just realised where Doyle was coming from. "You misunderstand."

"I do?" Doyle asked, hope briefly flaring in his chest; maybe there'd been some misunderstanding about what they were planning to do and this whole 'eat his brains' thing was actually some weird turn of phrase he'd missed...

"Yeah, it'll just be me," Richard said, leaning on the edge of the box as he dashed that flicker of hope before it could develop any further.

"Why don't I just give you that hug and we can call it even?" Doyle asked hopefully.

"You're not trying to back out, are you?" Richard said, standing back up as he looked at Doyle. "Not after you gave your _blessing_."

"Yeah, yeah," Doyle said, seizing on the possible loophole he'd just been given. "I take it back!"

"Oh," Richard said, shaking his head as he walked away from the box dejectedly. "Well... I see. Now I'm not so sure I even _want_ to eat your brains!"

Doyle couldn't believe these people; who the hell was actually _keen_ on the idea of committing cannibalism these days (Although the slightly prejudiced part of his mind had to wonder if it would count as cannibalism given that neither of them were fully human or even the exact same species as each other, even if they _were_ both sentient)?

"Don't be petulant, Richard," his father said. "You'll eat his brains. He can't take back a blessing. Now, apologize to your friend."

"He's right," Richard said, with a tone that sounded almost disturbingly genuine. "That was rude; I'd be honoured to eat your brains."

"Well, I guess we're ready," the eldest Straley said, handing Richard the knife. "Richard, would you care to make the first cut?"

Before Richard could do more than take the knife, the door of the restaurant suddenly seemed to fly off its hinges as Angel walked into the building, his vampire visage clear on his face as it enhanced his glare.

"The party is over," he said, looking resolutely at the Straleys; Doyle somehow doubted many people would be relieved at the sight of a vampire arriving in the building.

"You brought a _vampire_ to my brother's bachelor party?" Nick said, moments before a glass struck him on the side of the head and he fell to the ground with a yell, the other demons glancing in the direction that he glass had come to see Leo back on his feet.

"If it helps, he also brought a Whitelighter," the Whitelighter said, wincing slightly as he cradled the back of his head before he re-focused his attention on the Straleys. "Although, given that you're trying to eat my friend's brain, I have _very_ little sympathy for you right now."

With that, Leo and Angel leapt into action, Leo rapidly shifting his focus from one of the surrounding demons to another while Angel found himself engaging multiple foes at once with a variety of kicks and punches, his superior natural strength making up for their foes' numerical advantage. As Angel threw the first demon into the wall, the fight reverted to a mass free-for-all as three of them tried to grab Angel's left arm, only for Angel to kick the next couple of attackers away before Leo hauled one of the demons off Angel's limb and punch him in the face.

As Angel neatly fended off the two demons holding on to his other side, Richard attempted to charge Angel with the knife, but Angel neatly kicked the blade out of Richard's hand, simultaneously knocking him back into the box that Doyle was still trapped in and jolting the lock loose. As Angel found himself deflecting the blows of another demon, Richard's father tried to knock Leo out with another bottle, only for Leo to grab him by the arm and throw him off to the side, the bottle striking another cousin in the head as Straley Senior fell to the floor.

For a moment, Doyle's only focus was trying to role the box somewhere out of the way- his head was still stuck but he could move the box by lurching his body around inside it-, but then Angel threw someone off his back and into the box, jolting the lock loose, and Doyle concluded that now was as good a time as any to take Angel's earlier advice.

"Harry says I should mix with other demons," Doyle said, enjoying the strength that surged through him in this form more than he ever had before as he felt the spikes erupt over his face, "I'll _mix_!"

Breaking out of the box, Doyle swiftly joined the action, hauling Nick away as he tried to punch Angel in the face, Leo grabbing another demon who'd taken hold of Angel's left arm and yanking him away from the vampire, leaving Angel free to knock out the remaining demon. Temporarily back-to-back with Leo slightly off to the side as Angel fought off the demons from a position in the middle of the room, Doyle exchanged a few quick punches with one of the Straleys, but a surprise attack from another with a bar stool sent him flying into a nearby booth.

* * *

  
Angel was definitely starting to worry about this fight; he could have handled the Straleys in smaller numbers, but the sheer quantity of them was making it difficult for him to do much to the force against him even with Leo and Doyle's help, particularly since he didn't want to kill anyone just yet until he'd established what they were trying to do...

"Stop it!" a voice that Angel quickly recognised as Harry's suddenly yelled, glancing over in the direction of the door- shifting to his human face as he did so; he didn't think that Harry knew what he was yet and explaining that would be too complicated right now- as Doyle's ex ran into the room, followed by Phoebe and Paige. "Stop it right this instant!"

"Hon bun?" Richard said, looking up from the booth that he had been thrown into a few moments ago, wincing as he hauled himself back to his feet. "This is for guys only-"

"I know what you're up to, Richard Howard Straley," Harry said, glaring at him.

"The stripper wasn't my idea, pook, I swear-" Richard began.

"Not the stripper, Richard," Harry said, before she assumed a more conventionally upset expression. "There was a stripper?"

"You really shouldn't be here," Richard said, evidently trying to ward attention away from that issue.

"Well, talking of people not doing what they're supposed to be doing, _you_ shouldn't be trying to eat Doyle's brains!" Phoebe yelled, walking forward to glare at Richard and his family. "I mean, _God_ , the guy drinks a bit too much, but he'd never _harm_ anyone, and now _you_ -"

A groan from behind prompted Phoebe to turn around and see Doyle staggering up from the booth where he'd fallen earlier, his face once again in its human form; Angel guessed that Doyle had taken advantage of Phoebe's decision to step forward while she was yelling at the Straleys to transform back into his human appearance and maintain her ignorance of his demonic heritage.

"Doyle!" Phoebe yelled, her ire at the Straleys forgotten as she ran over to give him a quick hug before she pulled away. "Are you OK?"

"I'll be OK," Doyle said, shrugging briefly at the question.

"I'm only going to ask you this once, Richard, and I expect a straight answer," Harry said, her hands on her hips as she glared at her fiancé. "Were you or were you not intending to eat my ex-husband's brains?"

"In a way..." Richard said, his tone actually sheepish as he nodded awkwardly at her.

"And when were you planning on telling me?" Harry asked.

"I thought maybe I wouldn't have to," Richard said, shrugging in a manner that made it clear he recognised his precarious position.

"You were going to start out our life together with deceit?" Harry said, glaring at him in frustration.

"Sort of missing the point, isn't she?" Doyle muttered to Angel, a sentiment that the vampire had to agree with; even with his limited social interaction, killing someone should rank higher than a lie, even if they were same thing.

"I was just trying to bless our marriage," Richard said, looking earnestly at her; Angel guessed he was trying to focus on the cultural aspect of this current equation. "Like in the ancient teachings-"

"And since when does your family follow the ancient teachings?" Harry countered.

"We don't flaunt our beliefs, but they're very dear to us," Richard's father added.

"Oh, _please_ , Uncle John!" Harry said, looking scathingly back at him. "When is the last time you pried yourself away from ESPN long enough to spill the blood of a she-goat?"

Angel had to wonder what kind of ritual would require someone to spill the blood of a she-goat on a presumably regular basis, but an angry comment by one of Richard's cousins prompted him to focus his attention back on the present; as interesting as that explanation might be, he should probably focus on the present right now.

"You know how I feel about these barbaric Ano-movician customs!" Harry said, staring resolutely at Richard as he tried to weakly protest.

"Racist!" the cousin who'd protested earlier said, sounding actually satisfied at Harry's latest comment. "You're nothing but a-"

"Person who objects to the idea that someone she cares about will get his brain eaten," Paige interjected, glaring at the cousin. "Which, come to think of it, should be _most_ people; how could you invite us out to something like this when you were going to _eat_ our friend?"

"Harry wanted you to come," Richard said, shrugging as though that explained everything before he turned back to look at Harry. "I should have told you. I'm sorry. But... unless we complete the ritual my family will never consent to the marriage."

The murmurs of consent from around them weren't clear, but they were clear enough to confirm that Richard was telling the truth about his family's thoughts on the relationship.

Angel didn't even bother to tense up as Harry looked between Doyle and Richard; whatever else Harry was, she still cared enough about Doyle not to want him dead. Turning back to Richard, she took his hands in hers, looking tearfully at him for a moment.

"Hon bun?" Richard asked, only for Harry to turn away, leaving Richard staring at the ring she'd just returned to him as she walked by the small group that had now gathered around Doyle

" _One_ word, Francis," she said, glaring at Doyle just as he opened his mouth while she walked past him, "just one word, and _I'll_ eat your brains!"

Looking grimly at each other, Angel, Doyle, Leo, Phoebe and Paige turned to walk out of the bar- Angel briefly heard one of the Straleys say something about Harry's knees only bending one way, but it wasn't anything important-, a relationship ended but their friend saved.

That was the problem with human/demon interaction, really; even the demons that weren't actively trying to kill you could have their own value system that humans wouldn't or couldn't cope with...

As he walked out of the restaurant, he briefly paused as he glanced to the side, vaguely glimpsing something black moving out of the corner of his eye, but shook his head and turned his attention back to the walk when he saw nothing there.


	25. Healing Sam

"OK, so we you went to the bachelor parties, and someone tried to _eat Doyle's brain_?" Piper said, looking incredulously at Leo, Phoebe and Paige; Angel had taken Doyle back to his apartment to recuperate from the emotional consequences of what he'd just been through, leaving the other three to return home and tell Piper what had just happened.

"Well, in their defence, it was part of a tradition of their people; they didn't just decide to do it on a whim-" Leo began.

"They were going to cut open Doyle's skull and scoop out his brain with a _soup spoon_ ; I think I'm entitled to feel a bit offended on my friend's behalf!" Phoebe interjected, glaring over at Leo; Piper might be shocked at the news, but Doyle and Phoebe had generally struck up a closer relationship due to their shared responsibility as seers, which had left her feeling more hostile on his behalf about the recent events. "God, how can you _defend_ that-?"

"I'm just trying to see both sides in an unusual situation, Phoebe; I'm not _condoning_ anything," Leo said, shaking his head as he looked at his sister-in-law. "The important thing is that Harry called off the wedding, so the Straleys have no reason to go after Doyle now; it's solved, and we didn't even need to kill anyone to do it."

"Yeah, getting through something without death's _always_ a plus," Paige said, nodding briefly before she sighed and sat back in the chair, shaking her head in frustration. "Still sucks, though; I mean, Doyle goes through all that, and he and Harry _still_ fell apart..."

Whatever any of her sisters might have said in response to Paige's comment was interrupted when a Darklighter suddenly appeared in the room, waving his crossbow as he grinned sadistically at the sisters. Piper tried to raise her arms to fire an explosive blast at him, but her attempt was cut short when their sudden opponent fired a crossbow bolt at Piper's stomach, followed by a further two crossbow bolts aimed at Paige and Leo in rapid succession, Phoebe too stunned and on the opposite side of the table to do anything in time. She had just started to get to her feet when the Darklighter vanished, leaving her to look anxiously at her sisters and brother-in-law.

"O-kay..." Piper said, allowing Phoebe to relax slightly as she looked over at her eldest surviving sister, who at least seemed to have been unharmed by the recent attack even if the arrow that had been fired at her was still obviously lying on the ground in front of her as though it had just fallen short of the mark.

"What just-?" Phoebe began, trying to focus on the immediate anomaly; if she was going to try and save Paige and Leo, she'd like to confirm that Piper wasn't just about to suffer a delayed reaction.

"Blue force-field stopped the arrow before it could reach me; no ideas what that was apart from that it was probably your niece deciding that I'm more use as an incubator when I can't be hurt, and this _really_ isn't the time to be talking about that," Piper said, crouching down beside her husband even as she glanced anxiously over at Paige, noting that her younger sister was still obviously in pain as Phoebe anxiously examined the arrow in her stomach before swiftly pulling it out.

 _Quick, but effective_ , the columnist reflected, glancing over at Piper as she repeated the move with the arrow sticking out of Leo's arm, briefly hurrying over to the kitchen before she came back with a couple of white towels, tying one around Leo's arm as she tossed the other- a slightly damp one, Phoebe noted- over to her. Without any other ideas, Phoebe helped Paige up onto the nearby couch and began to dab at the wound, ignoring the urge to hit something as she noted that her efforts weren't having much impact on the blood coming from the wound.

"You can't stop the bleeding, can you?" Paige said, her voice clearly weakened from the toxin now in her system.

"Just try and rest," Phoebe said, glancing over at Piper as she checked Leo's forehead. "How's Leo doing?"

"He's been better," Piper said, briefly contemplating the possibility of attempting the power-switching spell she'd used during the first Darklighter attack before dismissing it just as quickly; with the baby as developed as it was, there was no way to know what would happen to _its_ powers if she switched with Leo that way, and she doubted that Phoebe was in a clear enough place mentally to focus on what she'd need to do to control a completely new power in the time available to them. "We've got to find Sam; I'll call Angel and let him know that we need his help."

"Should I call Doyle?" Phoebe asked uncertainly.

"No way," Piper replied, shaking her head resolutely. "I'd _like_ his help, but I'm not tactless enough to ask a man who was nearly _eaten_ earlier to get back into the game that quickly when we've still got a chance to sort this mess out ourselves; he needs a bit of time off after something like that, and Angel and I should be enough to track Sam down."

"Why bother?" Paige muttered, wincing even as Phoebe continued to examine her wound. "The guy bailed on us already-"

"Look, this is a long story that this _really_ isn't the time for, so just... trust us that he _will_ want to heal you, and we'll fill you in on the rest later, OK?" Piper said, shooting a warning glance at Phoebe as she spoke; she might recognise that Sam was their only hope, but she didn't think that revealing his connection to Paige when she was in this condition was a good idea. "Now then, just... try and sense him, OK?"

She recognised that she was gambling a lot on faith that Sam wouldn't have gone anywhere too far away from them, but in a situation like this there really wasn't that much choice; it wasn't like they had Whitelighter contacts crawling out of the metaphorical woodwork.

She just hoped that, wherever Sam was, he was still somewhere in San Francisco; if he'd gone too far away, they were _really_ screwed...

* * *

  
As he hurried towards the bar that Piper had directed him to, Angel had to wonder what it said about his life when leaving his friend and partner to recover from nearly being cannibalised to bless his wife's second marriage in order to convince a guardian angel apparently experiencing a crisis of faith to save his girlfriend actually constituted a fairly quiet night.

He still couldn't quite believe that the Elders had decided to saddle Paige with an ex-Whitelighter who was apparently trying to quit his 'job' as her first charge- it seemed like a lot of pressure to put on a first-timer, in his view-, but that was something he'd ask Piper about later; at the moment, all that mattered was finding the guy so that he could help Paige and Leo recover from that Darklighter attack.

As he leapt down from the rooftops into the alley near the bar- running along rooftops might be overly dramatic, but it got the job done, and it saved him having to worry about running into anyone-, Angel's eyes immediately fell on a man in dark leather with a distinctive tattoo around his left eye who matched the description of the Darklighter that Piper said had attacked them, standing over an older man in a battered brown leather jacket with grey hair and at least a few days' worth of stubble around his chin who was lying in a heap outside the bar, a bottle of what looked like alcohol in his hand as he lay unconscious.

Even if Angel hadn't recognised the man as Sam Wilder from Piper's description, he would have stepped in on principle; the knowledge of the other man's identity just made it more personal. Jumping down to the street, Angel quickly kicked out at the Darklighter's arm, knocking the crossbow out of his opponent's grasp before he followed the kick up by grabbing the Whitelighter's arm and rapidly twisting it the wrong way. Even if Darklighters and Whitelighters shared a relative immunity to conventional injury, the subsequent scream of pain from his opponent confirmed Angel's theory that they retained the physical responses that they would have possessed in life even if the blows didn't cause the same amount of damage.

Before his adversary could retaliate, Angel grabbed him by the neck and twisted it, the Darklighter falling to the ground in silence as Angel hurried over to pick up his previously-dropped crossbow and aim it at the Darklighter's head, firing the arrow before the Darklighter before he could get up. While the arrows had obviously never been intended to be fired at the person who used them, the attack was clearly effective; the Darklighter barely had time to scream before an arrow had passed through his eye and out the back of his head. Screaming in pain, the Darklighter reached up to try and tear the arrow out, but Angel beat the dark creature to it, walking forward and yanking the arrow out of his eye before he plunged it into the Darklighter's mouth, now opened in a just-beginning scream of rage and pain, the dark magic weapon penetrating the Darklighter's brain before he could do anything to fight back. The scream abruptly terminated, the Darklighter collapsed to the ground, his body twitching slightly as he lay still in the alley.

"Sam Wilder?" Angel asked, ignoring his fallen opponent as he turned his attention to the man he'd come here to rescue. "My name's Angel-"

"Angel?" Sam repeated, rolling his eyes as he slowly sat up from the ground to glare in the vampire's direction. "Couldn't have gone for something more subtle, could they? Like trying to set me up to tell my _daughter_ that her father's a mess-"

"Contrary to the name, I'm not one of you, but this isn't the time to talk about that," Angel said, quickly cutting Sam off mid-rant; he didn't know what the other man was talking about, but he also knew that this wasn't the time to start worrying about details like that. "Look, right now, I need you to-!"

"Sam!" Piper's voice suddenly called out, Angel glancing up just as the eldest Halliwell entered the alley from the other end, her eyes quickly falling on the two men. "Angel?"

"Just got here; ran into that guy-" Angel began, indicating where the Darklighter lay behind him, only for Piper to suddenly flick her hands, a strangled scream starting and ending almost simultaneously, leaving Angel staring at Piper incredulously. "That guy was _still_ alive?"

"He was sitting up, even if he didn't seem to know what he was doing; I thought it would be best to take him out now before he could do anything else to you or Sam," Piper clarified as she hurried over to crouch down beside Sam with Angel. "Look, Sam, you need to get up!"

"Leave me alone..." Sam muttered, weakly struggling against Piper's grip.

"Listen to me, Paige and Leo _need_ you," Piper said, looking urgently at him. "The Darklighter shot them; you have to heal them."

"I don't know," Sam muttered, even as Piper and Angel helped him back onto his feet. "It's been so long..."

"Well, there's no one else; you have to do it," Piper said, glaring intensely at the older man. "Look, if you think you've screwed up in the past, now would be a good time to start making amends."

For a moment, Sam just stood and looked at Piper, his gaze occasionally shifting over to Angel in the process, before he turned to walk over to a corner of the alley, tension in his shoulders and stance that made it clear he was lost in thought as he considered what he was about to do.

"You're sure that he can do this?" Angel asked Piper as Sam took a few deep breaths in a possibly futile attempt to prepare himself for the decision he was about to make. "I mean, he's not exactly in great shape..."

"He can't get much worse, and we've got a good incentive to keep him focused," Piper said, holding up a hand to stop Angel as he opened his mouth to ask for more details. "Don't ask for anything else on that topic, because I'm not answering; Paige should know before you-"

"He's her father, isn't he?" Angel said, looking grimly over at Sam for a moment, tapping his nose as Piper opened her mouth to ask how he'd known that.

"Nose knows, huh?" she said after a momentary pause, looking slightly awkwardly at the vampire.

"Pretty much," Angel confirmed, nodding grimly at the witch before he glanced back at the Whitelighter. "It's trickier to be sure when I'm dealing with adults- children are a lot easier to identify that way, but adults have normally picked up their own scent over the years-, but inherited magic like what Paige received from him has its own scent if you know what you're looking for..."

Piper didn't get the chance to ask Angel for more information on what sounded like it could be a rather interesting topic before Sam had turned around and taken hold of both them, closing his eyes and orbing away.

* * *

  
As soon as they'd reappeared in the conservatory, Sam released his grip on Piper and Angel's arms and hurried over to crouch down alongside Paige, his hands reaching out to take up the usual healing position over Paige's still form, only for there to be no sign of anything happening afterwards apart from his hands shaking as he held them in position.

"What's the problem?" Phoebe asked, looking in frustration at Sam.

"I can't," Sam said, sounding like he was fighting back tears.

"OK, you know what?" Angel said, walking over to grab Sam by the coat and slam him against the nearest wall.

"Angel-!" Piper began, moving towards the vampire only to be stopped by the glare the former Scourge of Europe shot in her direction before he turned back to look at Sam.

"I have had it up to _here_ with you going on about how much of a screw-up you are, OK?" he said, his gaze fixed directly on Sam's with an intensity that Piper and Phoebe couldn't recall Angel ever showing while he was using his human face. "You've made a few mistakes and lost the people you loved; _so what_? I have had to live with the _memory_ of _killing_ my little sister for the past _hundred years_ \- to say nothing of the hundreds I killed in the century and a half between getting turned and getting my soul back-, and I _never_ used that as an excuse to give up when someone _asked_ me for my help!"

He knew that he wasn't exactly being totally honest about his attitude back before he'd met the Halliwells- he hadn't allowed his guilt and grief to stop him when people directly asked him for help, but he hadn't exactly gone out of his way to be in positions where people would have wanted to ask him those kind of questions anyway-, but the white lie wasn't that important right now; what mattered was making this guy get off his ass and save Leo and Paige before the Darklighter poison spread too far for anyone to help them.

"Don't you think I want to save them?" Sam retorted, staring in frustration at the vampire. "Do you think I _wanted_ her to be part of this? She's my dau-!"

"Yeah, and I'm her boyfriend who's actually _here_ for her, and I _not_ going to let her die just because you can't face up to what you've done!" Angel countered, his demonic visage struggling to emerge against his better instincts even as he forced that part of himself down; vamping out wasn't going to encourage Sam to help him. "She brought this family back together when nobody could have blamed them for falling apart, and drove me to get out of the gutter just so that I could try to help her by doing nothing more than being herself; the only person you've ever failed here is you, so get off that goddamn self-loathing train you've put yourself on and _get over it_!"

For a moment, Sam and Angel were left staring in silence at each other, until Angel stepped back from Sam with a grim nod, leaving the Whitelighter to crouch back down beside his daughter.

"Paige," he said, looking tearfully at her, even as she stared back at him in obvious confusion. "I am _so_ sorry."

"It's OK," Paige said, her voice low as she reached over to gently touch Sam's shoulder with the back of her hand. Even as the other three watched, white light spread from Sam's heart to envelop the rest of him, subsequently dissipating to reveal a more coherent expression on a far cleaner face than what he had possessed previously.

"What happened?" Sam said, looking down at himself in surprise.

"I think you just healed yourself," Phoebe said, smiling "Now Paige."

Looking solemnly at Paige for a moment, Sam held his hands over her and they began to glow, the familiar sound of healing magic temporarily filling the room before Sam lowered his hands, the wound in Paige's side now gone.

"Thank you," Paige said, sitting up slightly as she looked at Sam, an uncertain expression on her face as she studied the man she still didn't fully.

"OK," Piper said, urgency supplanting her usual politeness, "thanks later; Leo now."

Recognising her point, Sam walked over to Leo and crouched down beside his fellow Whitelighter, the ex-army-medic swiftly sitting up with a fully healed arm as he looked urgently at his wife.

"Piper, are you OK?" Leo asked, reaching out with one hand towards her stomach. "The baby?"

"Oh, she's fine," Piper said with a smile. "I don't think we have to worry about her at all."

Noting the stares from her husband, Paige and Angel at that comment, Piper could only shrug casually. "I'll explain later."

"So..." Paige said, looking slightly uncertainly at Sam. "What made you come back?"

Looking over at Piper and Phoebe, Sam swallowed anxiously before he turned his attention back to Paige, a resolute expression on his face.

"There's... something I should have told you earlier," he said at last.

* * *

  
"So," Paige said as she sat facing Sam in the conservatory the following morning- after Sam's revelation about his real identity, once Paige had recovered from her initial anger at the earlier deception she had asked for some time to think before speaking with him again-, "you're... my father, huh?"

"Yeah," Sam said, shrugging in an overly awkward manner. "You hate me, don't you?"

"Why should I?" Paige replied; directness was probably the best way to deal with the current awkwardness. "You were pretty much a stranger to me growing up, and... look, no offence, but I actually didn't spend a lot of time over the years thinking about you."

"Guess it's easier not to miss the father than the mother, huh?" Sam said with a slightly grim smile.

"I had a father," Paige said, feeling that she might as well tackle the most obvious potential concern Sam might have at this point. "One who made me proud to be his daughter, and it wasn't you."

"I... probably deserved that," Sam said, smiling awkwardly at Paige before he continued, his tone still awkward even as he was clearly resolved to say his piece. "Paige, I want you to know that giving you up was the hardest decision I ever had to make. Your mother too. If we could've done it over, we wouldn't have done it. But we weren't supposed to be together. A baby, we were afraid the Elders would find out."

"It's... OK," Paige said after a moment's pause, shrugging slightly as she looked at him. "I admit, what you did last night helped- you came through when we _really_ needed you, after all-, but even without that... well, I understand. I really do."

"It still has to have hurt you," Sam replied.

"I used to think that you didn't matter to me at all," Paige said. "If I never met you, my life would be perfectly fine."

After a moment to give Sam the chance to take in what she'd said, she gave him a small, awkward smile. "I guess, uh, the Elders knew better after all. When you gave me up, you made a choice that gave me the most amazing gift. See, I got to have these tremendous parents and we, we loved each other fiercely."

She acknowledged that the last statement may have been a bit questionable in terms of taste, given that she was talking to her biological father, but she felt obligated to reassure him that she hadn't ended up with the stereotypical 'nightmare parents' that the foster system could produce at times...

"And now," she continued, looking reassuringly at him, "I have this whole new life with my sisters... and my boyfriend."

"What about everything that goes with it?" Sam asked, a slight edge to his expression as he looked at her.

"If this is about Angel being what he is..." Paige began.

"I'm not judging him because he's a vampire," Sam said, holding up a hand to halt her objections. "The guy saved my life and gave me a good talking-to into the bargain; be kind of hypocritical to judge him just because he's technically dead given what I am, and he's definitely shown that he's not letting what he was influence what he _is_. It's just..."

He swallowed slightly, looking awkwardly at the ceiling before he looked back at her. "Well, if that develops into something... long-term..."

"I know what he can't do, and I'm fine with that," Paige said, the answer coming out almost without her even needing to think about it, prompting her to briefly pause as she took what she'd just said.

It really was amazing what you could say when you weren't consciously thinking about it; she'd gone from having some slight doubts about her relationship with Angel, to realising that she wanted nothing more than to stay with Angel for as long as she possibly could.

Their relationship would never be conventional, as Sam was not-so-directly pointing out to her- Angel's soul might be pretty much permanent now, but even without the fact that Angel couldn't go out in sunlight, there were such other issues as the fact that they'd never be able to have children or Angel's lack of aging-, but Paige was fine with that; sunlight could be overrated, adoption was still an option for them if things ever went that far, and if Piper and Leo could cope with Leo technically staying the same age as he was now, then she was sure she and Angel could find a way to do the same.

Maybe she'd worried about Angel backing out on her like everyone else seemed to have done in her life on _some_ level, but if what she'd just said wasn't a perfect example of a Freudian slip she didn't know what was; she might have convinced _herself_ she was thinking of leaving Angel to escape being hurt again, but in the end it was nothing but old fears and issues making her more paranoid than she should be.

"I chose to be with Angel just like I choose to be a witch," she said at last. "I could've walked away, but I didn't."

She smiled at Sam as she spoke, the part of her that would always be a daughter looking forward to her father's reaction to this news. "And now I'm a detective _and_ a Whitelighter to boot."

"You're a detective?" Sam asked, smiling at her in the most paternal manner she'd seen him express so far.

"Angel runs an agency we set up with help of a friend of ours and Leo and I work there with Doyle- another seer-; it gives us a better official cover for when we have to help people," Paige explained with a slight shrug. "I mean, a club owner, an advice columnist, and an ex-social worker don't _really_ have much reason to be hanging about potentially supernatural crime scenes, but a P.I. and his associates _do_ have a pretty clear reason."

"Nice idea," Sam said, nodding in understanding at her. "That's my girl."

Even if Paige knew that she didn't need it, hearing her father approve of her chosen path in life felt... good, was the only term she could really think of using; simple, but still effective.

They might have a long way to go if she and Sam were going to have any kind of relationship with each other, but they'd made a start; one thing she'd learned in this life was that you had to take everything step-by-step if you were going to make any kind of progress.

* * *

  
"So," Doyle asked, glancing up from his desk at the sound of the door opening, revealing Paige as she walked into the office, "how's things with your dad?"

"You heard about that?" Paige asked, looking at the Irish demon in surprise; considering what had almost happened to him the previous night, she was impressed that he'd felt capable of even coming into work in the first place.

"Angel and Leo filled me in; sounds like we all had an interesting night last night," Doyle said, smiling briefly at his friend. "Anyway, how'd it go?"

"Good," Paige replied. "Difficult, but good. How about you and Harry?"

"We... talked," Doyle said, looking slightly awkwardly at her.

"Didn't go well, huh?" Paige said, looking sympathetically at him as she sat on the edge of the desk.

"'Bout as well as that thing can ever go," Doyle said grimly, staring in dejection at the desk in front of him.

"Hey," Paige said, reaching over to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder. "You'll get through this, Doyle. Nice guys don't _always_ finish last, you know."

"I'll keep that in mind," Doyle said, before he raised a slightly curious eyebrow at Paige. "Talking of nice guys, how 'bout you and Angel?"

"Yeah, well, I've been thinking about that, and... I'm not _quite_ ready to let that go yet," Paige said, grinning slightly as she spoke. "Maybe we're not always going to have it easy, but I think we've got enough going for us that there's no reason to give up on him _just_ yet."

"Good," Doyle said, smiling at her in approval. "Always good to hear _something_ worked out for people."

"What worked out for people?" Angel asked, walking out of his office to look curiously at Doyle and Paige.

"Just... we're all alive, you know," Paige clarified, smiling over at him. "Oh, and things with Sam aren't too bad, I promise you; he actually said that he likes you."

"Good," Angel said, a slightly embarrassed expression on his face that neither Paige or Doyle could recall seeing on him before now; somehow, the idea of the vampire looking embarrassed like this still managed to amuse them despite everything else that they had gone through the previous night. "Talking of people liking people, how's the search for a nanny coming along?"

"Apparently the elf Piper and Leo were speaking to yesterday spread the word about that Darklighter attack," Paige said, her expression becoming slightly grimmer as she remembered the close call that Sam had nearly suffered...

God, had that only been the previous night? She couldn't recall a day as busy as this since the time they'd had to deal with Alcathla _and_ Agent Jackman virtually simultaneously...

"Hey," Angel said, smiling as he walked over to stand beside her, placing a gentle arm around her shoulders. "We'll work something out, huh? I mean, I'm sure Doyle or I can help to keep an eye on the kid when Piper's at the club or something like that..."

"Taking on uncle-esque duties already?" Paige said, surprised at how comfortable she felt naming Angel and Doyle as her prospective niece's uncles already.

"Uncle?" Doyle repeated, looking at Paige in surprise, clearly not having expected such a title.

"Hey," Paige said, smiling over at Doyle. "You're on the team, Doyle; you don't have to be dating one of us to be counted as family."

She might not have had the largest possible family while she was growing up, and her current one was far from conventional, but Paige felt that she'd experienced enough screwed-up families in her time in social work to know when she had a good one.

As far as she was concerned, her old relationship-related hang-ups could be forgotten now; she had a new relationship with her biological father, she'd had an interesting epiphany or two about her thoughts on relationships, and she'd learned some interesting trivia about Doyle's past life into the bargain.

Their lives might be complicated, but the bonds between them could _never_ be broken; new information and events like what had happened recently could only make them stronger.


	26. Mummies Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My new take on 'Y Tu Mummy Tambien', starting with Paige arriving at work after trying to help Piper buy maternity clothes (This time not interrupted by a phone call from Darryl; given that the Halliwells and their associates now have an office it's easier for him to get directly in touch with them)

As she walked into the agency reception, Paige could only roll her eyes in frustration at the memory of how long Piper had taken to pick any kind of maternity wear; Angel might be a bit slow getting places at times, but at least _he_ had the excuse that he was a vampire who was occasionally out of touch with modern technology and sometimes needed to take time out to charge his phone or stuff like that.

"Everything OK?" Angel asked, walking out of his office to look at her with a slight smile.

"As OK as you can expect when I spent so long waiting around a changing room for Piper that I feel like my hair should have turned white," Paige replied, shaking her head in exasperation at the memory as she gave her boyfriend a brief kiss before she sat on the edge of her desk. "I mean, I get that she's uncomfortable with the 'cute' angle that pretty much dominates the maternity wear department, but her pants weren't even buttoning any more, and she can't expect to just keep going up a few sizes for the next few months."

"Wasn't wild about it, huh?" Doyle asked, looking over at Paige from his own desk with a smile.

"She asked for something that would go with _combat boots_ ," Paige said, rolling her eyes as she looked between her vampiric boyfriend and her half-demon co-worker. "I know she's pretty much indestructible and immune to magic attacks thanks to my niece's freaky womb-originating powers, but that doesn't mean she can _completely_ forget the fact that she's carrying another life inside her who can only take so much _conventional_ punishment and physical movement..."

"It's always tough when mothers have to accept their limitations," Angel said, smiling slightly grimly as he looked over at a nearby window. "My father was always so... cautious... when my mother was pregnant with my later siblings..."

"Sibling _s_?" Paige repeated, looking sharply at Angel; his biological family was never a comfortable topic for any of them to discuss, but she wasn't about to give him a chance to back out when he was the one who brought them up, particularly not when it contradicted what little he had told her about his life back then. "I thought you said you only had Kathy-?"

"She was the only one who lived past a few days," Angel said, his grim expression answering any questions that Paige and Doyle might have thought about asking.

"Oh," Paige said, feeling the same inadequacy she always felt when confronted by the sheer scale of loss that Angel had suffered in his life before he'd met her; somehow, the fact that this latest information was about a loss that he had suffered in a world outside of the supernatural only made it worse. "I'm... I'm sorry, Angel."

"So," Doyle said after a moment's pause, looking over at Paige with a slight smile, clearly trying to divert the conversation to a more positive topic than the one that Paige and Angel had unintentionally started, "how's Phoebe doin'?"

"Oh, pretty much the same as always; hanging around the house except when she has to go to work," Paige said, shaking her head slightly in frustration. "I mean, I can get her wanting to take a break from dating after Cole threw her for a loop by dying for us like that, but she _really_ needs to get back in the game... Talking of which, how'd that Missing Persons case turn out?"

"Turned out to be nothing major; the guy had just left to get some surgery to deal with an... embarrassing personal problem that he didn't want anyone else to know about," Angel said, shrugging slightly as he looked at Paige. "Awkward, but at least we're branching out beyond the usual supernatural cases; no point getting stereotyped."

"Hope that doesn't mean you won't want to check out this one," a voice said from the door.

"Darryl?" Paige said, spinning around to look at their police contact in surprise as he stood at the door, looking grimly between the three of them.

"What's up?" Doyle asked, voicing the question in the minds of all three of the Angel Investigations staff.

"Might be nothing, but given how often this kind of thing turns out to _be_ something I thought you should know anyway," Darryl said, walking into the office with a file in his hands that he opened to show to the trio, revealing a sketch of a man in a leather jacket with thick black hair and a high, weathered face. "We're still working on an identity for this guy, but he's wanted for five murders in five different cities; last one was his first one in San Francisco. We're hot on his tail, following a tip, and then he just vanished."

"What makes him potentially our type of bad guy?" Doyle asked, even as his apprehensively expression made it clear that he was already expecting to hear a confirmation; Darryl wouldn't contact them about a case unless he was certain that it required their presence.

"The fact that every victim he's killed has been mummified, and there's always been a pile of sand beside the body when the victim's been discovered," Darryl said, looking grimly over at the half-demon seer. "From what I saw of the last vic's apartment, it looked like she was a witch, so I thought I should let you know what's happening soon; even if it's not demonic, it still could be something you need to keep an eye on."

"Right..." Angel said, nodding thoughtfully as he contemplatively studied the sketch that Darryl provided them with. "You know, I _think_ I recognise this guy..."

"Really?" Paige said, looking at him inquiringly. "You know who it is?"

"I have an _idea_ about who it is, anyway," Angel corrected her. "All that stuff about sand and mummification reminds me of some tales I heard at some point about a demon with a bit of a reputation for killing people in this manner, but everything I heard about him suggested that he tended to focus on the Middle East, such as Cairo, Istanbul, and Tripoli."

"Somethin' for you guys to look up, anyway," Doyle said, smiling slightly as he looked over at Angel and Paige. "Should I just-?"

"No, I'll let Piper and Phoebe know; you two need to check out that crime scene and see if there's anything a conventional crime scene analysis might have missed," Angel said, standing up and looking over at Darryl. "If you could show them where it is?"

"Just so long as you've got a decent reason why I'd be taking a couple of P.I.s to an active crime scene, right?" Darryl asked, holding up a hand as he looked over at Paige and Doyle. "I didn't go to all the trouble of getting you guys a licence just so you could fall back on the 'we're psychics' bit."

"No worries; we'll just say we think there's a connection between this death and something we're looking into and leave everything else under client confidentiality," Doyle said, nodding reassuringly at the detective even as he shot a briefly sceptical glance at Paige, evidently wondering if the lie Darryl had just mentioned had ever actually worked on anyone. "Said it yourself; no point makin' things too complicated, after all."

" _Sounds_ possible..." Darryl replied, nodding thoughtfully at the Irish demon before he looked slightly awkwardly at him and Paige. "Just... don't mention that there might be a supernatural twist to this whole thing, OK? I had to go to a lot of trouble to lose the freaky-deaky rap, and if I'm passed over for promotion this time, there's not gonna be a next time."

"No sweat; we won't do a _thing_ to compromise your chances," Paige said, nodding at him with a smile before she glanced over at Angel. "Good luck on the research front."

Angel didn't bother complaining; in any murder, speed was crucial, and when they were preparing to 'intrude' on an actual crime scene in daylight, it would be too much trouble to make sure Angel didn't get accidentally exposed to the sun and give his true identity away while he was there. They'd just have to hope that Doyle's demon senses would be sharp enough to pick up anything that conventional human investigators might have missed in Angel's absence.

* * *

  
As she walked into the apartment complex where their victim had lived, Paige had to admit that the building was really pretty good, even if a part of her had to wonder why it was that most demons and witches _always_ seemed to make a comfortable life for themselves despite the 'no personal gain' rule; demons she could understand given the whole bit with them being evil, but how could other witches find the time to get a decent job _and_ keep up with the magic?

God... she had a hard enough time getting the chance to work on her spells when she worked for herself and _used_ magic in her profession on occasion; she had _no_ idea how other people were meant to do it when work and magic were totally separate things...

Still, right now, this wasn't the time to wonder how other witches managed; she had a situation to deal with, and she'd just have to focus on what was in front of her.

"They're with me," Darryl said, indicating Paige and Doyle to the officer standing at the door of the apartment. "Francis Doyle and Paige Matthews; they're private detectives."

"Ah," the officer said, looking slightly uncertainly at the two figures. "And... what are you here for?"

"We're with Angel Investigations, and we think the body may have something to do with a client's case," Paige said in a noncommittal manner. "I'd say more, but, y'know, client confidentiality."

The officer looked at them with a sceptical expression for a moment, but then he shrugged and nodded as the three walked into the apartment, Paige quickly noting the interior; basic, but still fairly comfortable if you didn't care too much about the extras.

"Look," Darryl said, as the officer closed the apartment door behind them, "forensics have been all through here, so you can touch anything you want; just, uh, make it quick, okay?"

Anything else that Darryl might have said was cut off when his pager beeped, prompting him to pick the device off his belt and glance at it before he walked out of the apartment. "I'll be back."

"Well, at least we know that this girl was a witch," Paige said, smiling slightly as she studied the apartment, her gaze quickly falling on an open cupboard with various jars and mixing containers inside it.

"So," Doyle asked, looking awkwardly over at Paige, "if Phoebe's out of the dating game at the moment..."

"Seriously, I am _not_ the best person to ask about how you'd go around getting a date with her," Paige said, shaking her head grimly as she looked back at the half-demon, analysis of the apartment temporarily forgotten. "When it comes to relationship issues, Phoebe and I kinda stopped talking about that after things got so complicated with Angel and Cole..."

"What with them goin' evil on you both, huh?" Doyle asked.

"Well, _Cole_ went evil- or at least mad-; Angel was just essentially replaced by his evil twin..." Paige began, before she shook her head in self-exasperation. "Look, that's not important right now; what matters is that, after everything Cole did to her, she probably needs a bit more time to herself before she starts dating again."

"Ah," Doyle said, nodding in a slightly sullen manner, clearly dejected at Paige's comment even if he understood her reasoning.

"Besides, no offence, but considering that you just got a divorce yourself, might not be the best thing if _you_ dived into the dating pool yourself; gives off kinda the wrong impression, you know," Paige added, looking at Doyle with a briefly awkward expression.

"Point..." Doyle said, sighing as he looked upwards in obvious frustration.

"On that topic, why didn't you mention that you and Harry were still married?" Paige asked, her curiosity briefly overriding her usual polite desire not to ask her friends too many questions as she looked curiously at the man she'd only recently realised she knew very little about. "I mean, if something had come up...?"

"Mostly it was just self-denial, really; felt like most of my human life had been a lie after I found out 'bout my dad's real nature, and didn't really wan' to be reminded of it," Doyle said with a grim shrug, looking slightly solemnly over at the half-Whitelighter. "Probably not the best thing to do, but there ya go."

"Ah," Paige said, sighing as she looked at her friend. "You think too much about the demon thing, don't you?"

"Huh?" Doyle asked, looking at her in confusion.

"No offence, but you can't let what you are biologically _define_ your identity, OK?" Paige said, the case forgotten as Paige metaphorically put on her Whitelighter 'hat' and looked reassuringly at her friend. "Being a demon's a major part of who you are now, but it's not the be-all and end-all of your existence; we like spending time with you because you're _you_ , not because you're human or demon or half-breed."

"It's still-" Doyle began.

"I get that you have issues with it, but you need to focus on the fact that they aren't as important as you've convinced yourself they are," Paige said, still looking resolutely at her friend. "We don't just keep you around for the visions or the demonic strength; we keep you around because we like you for _you_..."

Her voice trailed off as she looked at something on the floor, her eyes widening in understanding.

"What?" Doyle asked.

"Look," Paige said, indicating a map that was lying on the floor and a small crystal lying a short distance away from the map under a nearby chair. "Well, that answers that question; she was _definitely_ scrying for something."

"The question is what, huh?" Doyle asked, looking grimly at the map in frustration. "Too bad my visions aren't as sensitive as Phoebe's; damn things coming from outside _really_ doesn't help matters much..."

"Look," Paige said, deciding that she might as well try and kill two birds with one stone as she silently orbed the crystal into her hand and handed it over to Doyle, "Phoebe went to work earlier today; maybe you could... take that to her and see if it triggers a vision?"

"Sure," Doyle said, taking the crystal from his friend with only a slightly apprehensive manner. "Couldn't hurt to let the expert have a shot at this..."

"Hey, your visions just have different areas of expertise; it's not a crime," Paige said, even as she made a mental note to try and find some time to do some sort of research into that area; it couldn't hurt to work out more precisely what Phoebe could pick up that Doyle couldn't, and vice-versa...

"Did you get anything?" Darryl asked, walking back into the apartment just as Doyle had slipped the crystal into his pocket.

"Nothing obvious yet; we'll get back to you if we do," Paige said, nodding as she and Doyle headed towards the door; as much as they trusted Darryl, there were just some occasions where the needs of magic had to take precedent over legal rules.

She had faith that Darryl could handle most conventional crimes, and he'd definitely proven his worth helping them deal with some of their less conventional problems, but the fact was that the police just couldn't cope with some of the things they tackled on a daily basis; with the best will in the world, how could you lock up something that could shimmer out of the cell or bend metal bars with their bare hands?

She hated deceiving him like this, but it was the only way they might have a chance of finding whoever or whatever was behind this...

* * *

  
"Anything?" Angel asked, looking up at Paige as she walked through the door of the office- orbing might have been quicker, but she didn't like to orb everywhere unless she had to-, a grim expression on her face as she studied the crystal she'd picked up from the crime scene.

"Not much from the crime scene, unfortunately; she was scrying for something, but there's no way of knowing what that is," Paige said in frustration. "How about you?"

"Well, Piper and I think we've identified the demon we're dealing with," Angel said, looking at her with a slight smile. "If we're right, his name is Jeric, and his history tends to focus on the Middle East like I thought it did; the only thing I was missing was what he was after."

"Which is?" Paige asked curiously.

"He's trying to find the perfect body for his lover, Isis," Angel said, grimly studying the book in front of him to make sure he wasn't missing anything as he continued his explanation. "According to this, Jeric was apparently a demon back in Ancient Egypt who was so powerful that they had to mummify him rather than vanquishing him, but he was released by Isis, a witch who'd fallen in love with him, only for Isis to get flayed alive by his enemies before he could fully recover and save her."

"Ouch," Paige said, wincing at the thought of someone getting their skin taken off like that. "That'd be tragic if they weren't, you know, _evil_."

"Which ties into the reason for the abductions," Angel explained, his expression grim as he spoke. "He's trying to find a body to host Isis's spirit, but the witches he selects keep dying; two spirits can't occupy the same body and the invading spirit overloads it. There's some speculation that the reason he fails is that he hasn't found a witch with enough magic for Isis to dispossess the host body before the expulsion takes place..."

"OK, so we've got what this guy's after; what do the mummies have to do with anything?" Paige asked, walking to stand behind Angel and glance at the book before giving it up; she was trying her best, but foreign languages were _not_ one of the skills she'd mastered from her Whitelighter side yet (And that was assuming it even worked for written or demonic languages; she _really_ needed to ask Leo about that at some point).

"He mummifies the corpse to trap Isis' spirit to keep her from moving on until he can find her a new body," Angel explained. "Maybe you can use the crystal to figure out who he'd be going after next?"

"Worth a shot..." Paige said, nodding reflectively as she walked over to her desk and pulled out the map she kept available for just such a situation, laying it out over the desk as she held the crystal above it. " _Scrying secrets come to me, drop again so I might see_."

The sight of the crystal dropping onto the Bay Mirror parking lot was all that Paige needed to realise who Jeric's next target was.

* * *

  
"So... we've got some mummifying guy going after witches?" Phoebe said, looking slightly sceptically at Doyle as the two of them walked into the Bay Mirror parking lot, the Irish seer having run into Phoebe just as she was preparing to leave work for the day.

"And he's meant to have done this kinda thing for a while in the Middle East; think it's safe to say that things're a _bit_ more serious than just another killer..." Doyle began, before a slight tingling prompted him to turn around and take in the sight of a man in black leaning casually against a nearby car.

"Great body," he said, looking at Phoebe as though Doyle wasn't even there, his tone so casual that he might as well have been asking to borrow some money. "Mind if I borrow it for a while?"

"Yeah, I do," Phoebe retorted, shifting into a combat stance just before Doyle used his closer proximity to their opponent to hit the man he was willing to bet was Jeric directly in the jaw. The attack didn't do much more than knock Jeric off-balance for a few seconds- Doyle wasn't exactly a pushover in either form, but he freely admitted that his strength in human form was more based around a higher pain threshold rather than an ability to deliver damage to others-, but it was enough for Leo, Piper and Paige to orb in to a position close to their sister and friend. Jeric had just shoved Doyle to the side as he started to lunge towards Phoebe when Piper flicked her hands at him, causing the ancient demon to explode before he could even open his mouth to scream.

"Huh," Piper said, examining her hands thoughtfully before she finally shrugged. "That was easy."

"Part of being part of the Power of Three, or do you think it's just a pregnancy thing?" Paige asked, smiling over at her sister.

"I'll call it pregnancy for the moment; no point thinking too highly of myself," Piper commented, smiling slightly as she glanced over at her sisters. "After all, I'm still one-third of this particular power pack, right?"

"Hey, let's not forget what Doyle did here, OK?" Phoebe added, smiling gratefully at her fellow Seer. "If he hadn't distracted Jeric when he arrived, the guy could have abducted _me_ as well."

"Well, let's not get bogged down in the close calls; we're not going to get anywhere worrying about stuff like that," Piper said, shrugging dismissively as she looked around at her family with a slight smile. "The point is that we're all here, the demon guy's been taken out, his lover's going to just give up the ghost without him there to put her in a new body, and Darryl..."

"Ah," Paige said, her expression faltering as she glanced down at the pile of ashes that were all that remained of Jeric. "You know, we _really_ need to think about looking into binding a demon's powers when Darryl's the one who brought the guy to our attention; how's he meant to get anywhere when most of his cases are marked 'open' because we took out the suspect?"

"Maybe we can give it _some_ kind of resolution..." Leo said, nodding thoughtfully as he studied the ashes that were all that remained of Jeric. "It's breaking a few rules..."

"After everything Darryl's done for this family, breaking a few rules is a pretty small thing to be worrying about," Phoebe said, looking resolutely at Leo. "If you've got a plan, do it."

"Right," Leo said, looking at Piper with a brief smile. "See you later."

* * *

  
"So," Angel asked, as he and Paige lay on the couch in Angel's apartment later that night, the case resolved and their friends and family off doing their own thing- Doyle and Phoebe were provisionally going out for a coffee to discuss their different style of visions, unless something else came up, and Piper and Leo were just spending some time planning for the baby-, "what did Leo actually do?"

"Oh, he disguised himself as Jeric and let Darryl arrest him," Paige said with a shrug.

Angel blinked.

"He what?" he said, looking at Paige in surprise.

"I mean, OK, 'Jeric' still gets away without them knowing how he pulled it off, but Darryl still gets credit for collaring the perp in the first place," Paige said, shrugging awkwardly at the memory before she smiled at her boyfriend. "We even managed to recover the body of his latest victim- Jeric took the mummy away so that he could transfer her spirit later-, so even if they can't catch _who_ killed Isis's host- Leo's pretty sure she'll just pass on eventually without anyone to perform the spell to send her somewhere else-, Darryl still comes out on top..."

"'Collaring the perp'?" Angel repeated, looking at the woman he loved with an amused grin. "You're really getting into this detective thing, aren't you?"

"I get to help people and be a kick-ass heroine while doing it; what's not to like?" Paige said, smiling back at him. "Besides, this has to be one of the easiest cases we've ever had; we didn't even have to worry about one of us getting abducted by Jeric to be Isis's new host."

"So long as things worked out for Darryl, I'm fine with that," Angel said, nodding briefly at her before another thought occurred to him. "How's Piper coming along with her 'maternal image' thing?"

"Still adjusting, but she's working on it," Paige said, smiling slightly at the memory. "It's not perfect, but I think she'll get there eventually; she can't exactly keep up trying to focus on staying 'tough' when she's faced with the ever-increasing evidence that she's pregnant."

"Yeah..." Angel said, trying not to think too much about the fact that he couldn't give Paige what she was so enjoying helping Piper experience right now.

She'd made the choice to stay with him, even when she knew what he was and what he couldn't give her; if she was happy with that choice, Angel wasn't going to bring it up unless he felt he should.

Besides, Paige had a good point; right now, this was a time to focus on the fact that they'd managed to take out a powerful demon with minimal risk to themselves, despite the power he'd possessed in life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter, I know, but that's the way of things; sometimes additional numbers can make all the difference (And Darryl's arrest of Leo would have basically been identical to the original episode, so I didn't bother rewriting it)


	27. Awkward Spirits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here you are; my take on "House Call" (Although I'll mention in advance that Glen doesn't know that Paige is a witch in this reality; he knows that she has sisters, but during the events of "Trial by Magic", certain, non-immediately-plot-altering events unfolded differently that resulted in Glen not learning about her magic, for reasons that I will reveal here), as always focusing on what's changed rather than what hasn't changed

As she lay on her bed talking on the phone, Paige couldn't believe how long it had been since she'd last spoken to Glen; it felt like centuries since he'd last been in town, rather than the months it had been in reality.

Then again, she supposed the distance that had developed between them since she became a witch- although, if she was being honest with herself, meeting Angel had been the catalyst for her distancing herself from him rather than the magic; she might have made more of an effort to stay in touch if the vampire hadn't been in the picture- would have made it seem longer than it was. She'd thought about inviting Glen over the last time he was in town, but considering that her relationship with Angel had still been in its early stages at that point, she'd decided that having her technically ex-boyfriend over would be putting her, Glen and Angel in an awkward position, so he'd just stayed at a hotel instead despite his expressed interest in meeting her new sisters (She wasn't even sure if she'd mentioned her current boyfriend to him, now that she thought about it; it was so hard to keep track of what she should and shouldn't tell people sometimes...).

"Seriously, you should have called earlier; I was getting worried about you," she said, deciding she might as well voice her more public-appropriate thoughts. "You've been gone for far too long, Glen."

" _Yeah, I'm sorry_ ," Glen said, his voice surprisingly slower and more awkward than his usual manner. " _I-I should've called and let you know that I was alright; I guess I, uh, ended up staying a little longer than I thought_."

"That's OK; it's been a busy few months here too," Paige said reassuringly. "Maybe we could catch up tomorrow night?"

" _Tomorrow night_?" Glen said, still sounding unusually awkward as he spoke. " _I-I can't tomorrow night, Paige, I've got plans_."

"Oh," Paige said, resisting the brief jealousy she felt at that comment; he might be back in her home city, but she and Glen hadn't seen each other for months, and it wasn't like she didn't have things to do with her time that _he_ didn't know about...

" _I still wanna meet you though_ ," Glen said, as Paige glanced wistfully at her and Glen's old photo album; after everything she'd been through since that fateful day when she'd vanquished Shax and been guided to the church by Angel, she found it hard to believe she'd ever been that carefree. " _I mean, I really wanna see you_."

"Good to know," Paige said, making a mental note that she should probably mention the whole Angel situation to him sooner rather than later; no point letting Glen get his hopes up, after all. "There's actually something I'd like to talk to you about."

" _Really? Sounds mysterious_ ," Glen said, awkwardness forgotten as he seemed to smile at the other end of the line. " _That's actually great, because there's something that I really wanna talk to you about too_."

"Great," Paige said, hoping that it wasn't what she automatically thought it was.

Even if she hadn't been a witch, she wasn't going to start dating Glen even if he did want to make their old relationship more serious; she was with Angel now, and that was that as far as she was concerned.

"See you at 11?" she asked, briefly puzzled at a strange creek from somewhere in the room before dismissing it as nothing.

" _11 is good; 11's great_ ," Glen said, only for Paige to be suddenly distracted by the sight of the phone cradle sliding along the side table without any sign of anything moving it. " _Usual place at the lake_?"

"Yeah, sounds fine; see you then," Paige said, her months of detective work and the occasional undercover 'assignment' giving the necessary self-control to avoid doing anything about the now-floating phone until she'd terminated the call, at which point she removed the phone from its socket and sighed.

"What the _hell_ is wrong with this house _now_?" she groaned, staring in frustration at the ceiling; it seemed like the entire manor had decided to start acting up these last few days for some reason. She'd tried to get around it by staying over at Angel's place for a couple of nights, but avoiding the problem didn't make it go away, no matter how much she might wish otherwise; she'd come back in the hopes of 'toughing it out', but so far that attempt had clearly failed to meet with success.

Leo might claim that it was all to do with residual demonic energy from the demons they'd taken out over the years 'acting up' rather than another attack, but right now all Paige cared about was the fact that it was throwing off her sleeping schedule and making it virtually impossible for anyone to get some rest or be sure that anything they needed for the day would be where it was meant to be... and that was _without_ Phoebe's persistent attempts to 'cleanse' the house.

If things didn't get straightened out soon, she was just going to relocate to Angel's flat and be done with it; it might be smaller than the mansion, and she hated to feel like she was abandoning her sisters, but at least she was more likely to get a full night's sleep...

* * *

  
As she headed to the park the following morning, Paige just hoped that the limited amount of rest she'd managed to get last night, what with Phoebe's attempts to cleanse the house and the damage Piper had caused trying to save her from the attacking furniture, wouldn't have any significant impact on her ability to cope with whatever Glen had to say in the most polite manner possible.

She might have a history with her old friend that extended far beyond the time that she'd spent with Angel, but no matter how much time they'd spent together, she wasn't going to leave Angel for him after everything the vampire had done for her; if nothing else, at least Angel was willing to really _commit_ to her.

She knew that it wasn't entirely fair to hold something like that against Glen- they'd both made the choice to have an on-again-off-again relationship rather than follow through with the possibility of being together for real-, but she couldn't change how she felt, and what she felt for Angel was still a _lot_ stronger than anything she'd felt for Glen.

Right now, with that witch-doctor working to cleanse the manor of all the accumulated evil it had gathered over the years, she just wanted to put her past with Glen behind her and focus on having a few normal days with Angel and Doyle at the agency...

"Paige?" Glen said, her thoughts about her vampire boyfriend forgotten momentarily witht he return of her childhood friend.

"Hi," she said, turning to give him a hug and a smile before she stepped back to give him a quick once-over; a year apart or not, he was still the same handsome guy he'd been back when they'd last seen each other.

"I like your hair," Glen said, smiling in approval at her.

"Thanks," Paige said, shrugging nonchalantly; it might have started as a botched potion job, but she was surprised how comfortable she felt with her new red do these days. "How was your climb? It was the Matterhorn, right?"

"It was awesome," Glen replied, his arms folded in a manner that Paige didn't need the body language she'd picked up at the agency to realise indicated that Glen was feeling awkward about something. "Uh, there was a lot more people there than when we were there though."

"That's too bad," Paige said, briefly finding herself mourning the fact that she'd never get the chance to do something like that with Angel- as a vampire, mountain-climbing wasn't exactly the safest activity- before she shrugged it aside; they could still save lives here, and in the end that was more important than getting cheap personal thrills.

"So, how about you?" Glen asked.

"Well," Paige said, grateful that she could at least tell him something honest about her recent past, "since you last visited, I've quit the social work business to join a private investigation agency."

"A private... you're a detective?" Glen said, his eyes widening in surprise even as he smiled at her. " _Cool_."

"Well, it's a pretty small agency- just me, my boyfriend, and a friend of his, although my brother-in-law lends a helping hand when he can- but we do a good job; already helped the cops catch a serial killer or two, as well as dealing with the occasional stalker," Paige said, smiling casually at her old friend, pleased at the neat way she'd worked Angel into the conversation there; it confirmed her non-availability without giving the impression that she was rubbing it in his face or something like that.

"Boyfriend?" Glen repeated, looking at her in surprise. "You have a boyfriend?"

"Yeah, I met him shortly after I met my sisters; he's... well, he worked as a bartender at Piper's club for a while before he decided to open the agency, and it seemed like a good opportunity to help more people, so I joined him," Paige said, allowing herself another moment of self-satisfaction at her neat minor fabrication; once again, she'd answered the essential questions without encouraging too many follow-ups that she'd have to lie about.

"Treating you OK, right?" Glen asked with a slightly teasing smile.

"Trust me; Angel wouldn't know _how_ to treat me badly," Paige replied (Which was true enough; _Angelus_ was the one with that kind of knowledge). "How about you?"

"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," Glen said, smiling broadly at her. "I'm getting married."

Paige blinked in surprise.

"Married?" she repeated incredulously.

It wasn't that she was jealous- she was perfectly happy with Angel, after all-, but the idea that he was getting _married_ to someone he'd met since the last time he was in San Francisco...

"Yeah, I wanted you to be the first to know," Glen explained. "After my parents, of course."

Looking over to the side before Paige had time to think about her reaction, Glen smiled as he apparently saw someone coming towards them. "Oh here she is; this is Jessica."

"Sorry I'm so late," the beautiful blonde approaching them said as Paige turned around, quickly taking in the other woman's taller stature, athletic exercise-based build- rather than the muscles Paige was developing during her training with Angel- and tied-back blonde hair. "I couldn't find parking anywhere. Hi."

"Hi," Paige replied, nodding slightly awkwardly at the other woman (Glen moving on was one thing, but completely forgetting to mention meeting someone he was going to _marry_ was something else entirely; at least Paige had the excuse that she and Angel led _very_ complicated lives).

"You must be Paige," Jessica said, apparently ignorant of Paige's shock as she smiled at the other woman. "Glen's told me so much about you. It's nice to finally meet you."

"Great to see you too," Paige replied, smiling awkwardly at the other woman.

She knew that it wasn't exactly a fair thing to have issues about- it wasn't like she and Angel hadn't encountered a few 'unique' problems while they were together, what with that goddamn clause on his soul and all-, but that didn't mean that she wasn't allowed to feel somewhat conflicted about the news that her childhood best friend and occasional romantic partner was getting married when she wasn't even engaged...

Quickly halting that thought before it could go anywhere, Paige turned her attention back to the conversation at hand, trying to force her traitorous mind away from the immediate topic of what she or Angel might or might do with their relationship in the future.

After all, it wasn't like marriage was ever going to be completely practical for them in a _legal_ sense- making up the necessary fake background like what Piper had done for Leo was one thing, but at least Leo could go out and interact with people under conventional circumstances; it was kind of hard to take Angel places when he'd collapse into ashes if he was just exposed to sunlight-; it was best if she just focused on enjoying the relationship that she had now without worrying about what she could or couldn't have later.


	28. I Told the Witch Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Intervening scenes involving the Witch Doctor purging Halliwell Manor of the excess demonic magic happened pretty much the same way they happened in the show; I just wanted to get to the part of the story where things slightly diverged from what happened in the original course of events (And I hope my alternative plans for Paige's 'response' to the curse meet with your approval)...

"So... your childhood best friend's gettin' married?" Doyle said, looking sympathetically at Paige as she sat behind her desk in the agency's office, staring half-heartedly at the invitation on the table in front of her.

"It's not that I mind about him moving on with his life; it's just that... well, he only dropped in to tell me about it the day _before_ the wedding," Paige said, shaking her head as she sat back in her chair, the invitation lying discarded on her desk as she stared up at the ceiling. "I thought that Glen and I could tell each other everything even if we _didn't_ end up together in the end, and I only hear about his _wedding_ on the day he's _getting_ married?"

"S'not like you haven't kept things from him," Doyle said, shrugging slightly as he indicated the office around them. "I mean, don't think you've mentioned the witch thing to him, right?"

"Yeah, OK, so I've kept some things from _him_ , but that's different; keeping the magic thing secret was meant to _protect_ him from having to deal with this kind of stuff, and things with Angel were just so complicated earlier that I didn't want to say anything until I knew..." Paige began, only to trail off as she felt like withering under Doyle's intense stare. "OK, so maybe I haven't shared some things with _him_..."

"Granted I'm not really the best guy to complain about secrets, but you've gotta just calm down about this whole thing, OK?" Doyle said, trying to smile encouragingly at his friend. "You're happy with Angel, this Glen guy's happy wi' his soon-to-be wife, Piper an' Leo are happy with their lives, and... well, if you could see your way to-"

"Not quite," Paige said, a suddenly slightly blank expression on her face that Doyle didn't like the look of much.

"Uh... what?" he asked, hoping Paige was just having trouble expressing herself or something like that; he knew that _he_ hadn't understood what she meant by that, and it wasn't like people hadn't spoken about their thoughts aloud without realising that other people couldn't understand what they meant before...

"My relationship with Angel should be more than it is," Paige said, looking at Doyle with an expression that somehow combined vacant intensity in a manner that the half-Brachen didn't find entirely reassuring. "I have work to do."

"'Work'?" Doyle repeated, standing rapidly up in his chair as Paige got up from her desk and headed towards the door. "On your _relationship_? Paige, you an' Angel are _fine_ where you are-"

"We could be better," Paige said simply, before she raised a hand and waved impatiently at him in a dismissive manner as she headed towards the door of the office. "See you later; I've got to get on with things."

"Wait; what-?" Doyle began, before his vision was surrounded by the familiar sensation of orbing, fading away to leave him standing on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, looking at his surroundings in exasperation.

" _Great_..." he muttered, glancing over the side of his new location as he quickly went over the most likely ways for him to get down, most of which involved relying on his demon form and hoping like Hell nobody saw him.

"Damnit, Paige..." he groaned- the witch probably wasn't herself, but he could still curse her for falling victim to whatever had made her act like that-, as he sat down on top of the bridge, pulling his jacket around his body to protect himself from the worst of the wind as he tried to think of any alternative options that came to mind for dealing with this particular mess.

He'd give it a few minutes to think of something himself, and then he'd have to call Leo and hope that the guy considered him a 'charge' on his own; he knew that Paige was working on her Whitelighter senses where he and Angel were concerned, but given that she'd sent him here he wasn't going to count on her snapping out of whatever had made her do this any time soon, and he wasn't clear on if Leo was bothering about that kind of thing...

* * *

  
When Angel opened his eyes later that afternoon- he might be trying to get into a more human-like daily schedule to better fit in with his friends, but as a vampire he still preferred to sleep in the day if possible-, he wasn't entirely sure how to react to the sight that greeted him; Paige, crouched on top of his bed, dressed in a very revealing set of black-and-red lingerie that somehow managed to cover the immediate necessities while still leaving _very_ little to the imagination.

"Hey there, Angel," Paige said, licking her lips in a manner that put Angel uncomfortably in mind of Darla for a moment, even if the warm affection in Paige's eyes was a contrast from the straightforward lust that had been in Darla's when they'd been in this kind of situation. "Have a good night?"

"Uh... yeah," Angel said, looking awkwardly at his girlfriend; as much as he appreciated the view she was presenting right now- even after seeing her naked, there was something so tantalising about the way this lingerie displayed her assets and made her curves stand out like that that _really_ got to him-, the actual action was something distinctly contrary to Paige's typically straightforward nature. "So... what are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know how it is," Paige said, grinning seductively at him. "The Manor's being de-energised, my childhood best friend's getting married, and we don't appear to have any clients for the day so far, so I figured... what better way to spend the day than here?"

"Hold on; Glenn's getting married?" Angel said; he remembered Paige telling him earlier that she was meeting her friend today in case he tried to call her while she was out, but he hadn't really thought much about the meeting until now. "When-?"

"Glenn isn't what's important right now, Angel," Paige said, placing a finger on his lips before she went on to trail it down his chest, smiling seductively at him as she hooked her finger over the blanket and began to move it down. "What _is_ important is my making sure you understand how very, _very_ happy I am with you... and how... _important_... our relationship is to me..."

Any response Angel might have made was cut short when Paige took advantage of his open mouth to plant her lips over his, her hands alternating between caressing his chest and pushing the sheet down further... the sheet that was now resting just above his thighs as one hand sneaked underneath it...

Letting out a lower growl as Paige's hand tightened its grip on the back of his head, Angel gave into temptation and grabbed her shoulders, holding her against him as his tongue caressed hers, the feel of silk and flesh as her barely-clad breasts pressed against his chest increasing his own arousal at the vision she had presented earlier, the scent of her filling his nostrils-

 _Wait_.

Now that Angel had moved in closer, he was aware of something... _off_... about her scent; it smelt as though Paige had...

"What's that scent?" he said, pushing Paige slightly away from him as he tried to place it in his mind, his eyes suddenly focused on Paige's clothing as he noted a few symbols sewn into the design around her waist that he thought he recognised from some of the myths from his childhood. "And are those... _fertility_ symbols?"

"Just a little thing I added earlier; had to use a quick spell or two to sort out the stitching in this time frame, but since it's for you as well it's not that big a deal," Paige said, smiling at him in a manner that Angel was starting to think of as almost disturbingly vacant; she didn't even seem to _register_ that he was concerned about the way she was acting right now. "Just sit back, relax, and let it all do its work-"

"Let what do its work?" Angel said, trying to resist the part of himself that was increasingly tempted to let Paige continue whatever she was trying to do, because she was doing things with the hand that was under the sheet that were oh-so-tantalisingly-close to being _very_ pleasurable at a time when Angel really needed to focus.

"Oh, y'know, just seeing if we can beat the odds and be a _really_ unique couple for once..." Paige said, grabbing Angel's left hand and moving it from her shoulder to her stomach, pressing his palm against her with a soft smile. "There's a place in here for a _very_ exceptional little life if all goes well, Angel..."

"Sorry; _what_?" Angel said, yanking the hand away from her as he stared at Paige incredulously. "Paige, you _know_ I can't... y'know..."

"Oh, don't worry about that; I'm working on a few spells to see about 'tweaking' that little issue," Paige said, smiling reassuringly at him as she leaned over, brushing her lips over his in a barely-there kiss before she pulled back. "After all, we have such a great relationship already, why not make it that bit better-?"

"Phone!" Angel said as the device in question rang, trying not to sound relieved as he quickly pushed Paige aside, got out of bed and headed for the phone in his flat's kitchen area, grabbing a dressing-gown as he walked; he didn't know _what_ had prompted Paige's mood, but he was increasingly sure that she was being far too forward for this to be natural.

" _Angel_?" Leo's voice said on the other end of the line, the Whitelighter sounding unusually exasperated about something. " _Are you OK_?"

"Aside from Paige trying to take our relationship to places I'm not entirely sure it _can_ go with me as I am, I'm fine, yeah; why?" Angel replied, trying to ignore the sound of footsteps as Paige walked up behind him; if Leo felt the need to call him, there had to be something wrong, but it also couldn't be urgent enough for Leo to feel the need to orb.

" _Paige is acting odd too_?" Leo said, the tone of his voice warning Angel before he said the rest of his sentence. " _Well, at least I know Piper's not the only one_."

"Piper's trying to seduce you?" Angel asked, stepping to the side as Paige advanced towards his back- fortunately she'd brought a cordless phone so he didn't have to stay in one place as he started walking-, one hand occasionally gently shoving her back as he kept a hold of the phone with the other.

"Seduce _me_?" Leo repeated, sounding like he wanted to stop himself laughing at the thought. " _I wish it was that simple; she's absolutely fanatical about cleaning the house_... _wait a minute, you mean Paige_ -?"

"Let's just say I'm-" Angel began, before the phone disappeared from his hand and appeared in Paige's.

" _Very_ busy preparing for the conception I've been trying to accomplish, so I'd appreciate it if you leave us alone for the next few hours, OK?" she said into the phone, clearly unconcerned about the fact that she was providing that information to her brother-in-law before she ended the call and returned her attention to Angel. "Now then, where were we?"

The sight of orbs briefly made Angel panic- was Paige bringing something in to try and 'liven things up'?-, but when the orbs dissipated to reveal Leo, the vampire allowed himself to relax slightly; the situation he as in might be embarrassing, but at least he wasn't alone in dealing with it any more.

"It's that witch doctor," Leo explained, trying not to look at Paige while he addressed the at-least-mostly-covered vampire. "I just finished talking with the Elders; they think that he put them under a hex."

"What?" Paige said, looking over at Leo with a smile. "I'm not hexed; I'm just-"

"You're trying to have sex with me in the middle of the day using fertility charms and incantations in the hope of bypassing my physical restrictions; I think we're a _bit_ past what you'd do normally," Angel interjected, looking firmly at Paige. "Paige, it's not that I wouldn't _want_... any of that... but you're trying to _force_ the pace of our relationship to be something that _you_ want, rather than something _I_ want; even if I'd _like_ it, that doesn't mean that you can just... _decide_ something like this for both of us."

"I'm just trying to-" Paige began.

"Paige, this _isn't_ like you; can you just _focus_?" Angel said, looking earnestly at the woman he loved, hoping he wouldn't have to resort to more drastic measures. "If you're not happy with how things are going between us, then I'm sorry, but this is pushing things too far; if you don't stop now, then I'm going to have to leave."

Paige simply stared at Angel in stunned silence for a moment, and then her eyes filled with a brilliant golden glow, prompting her to close her eyes for a moment before opening them once again, the original near-manic stare of fixation in her eyes replaced by a more normal, slightly confused expression.

"Angel?" she said, looking uncertainly at the vampire. "What happened...?"

She glanced down at herself and her eyes widened in shock, made even worse when she fully registered Leo's presence in the room.

"Oh God..." she said in shock. "What was I _doing_?"

"Trying to get pregnant, I think," Angel said, looking awkwardly at Paige for a moment before he glanced over at Leo and awkwardly indicated the nearest door. "Uh, could you just... give us a moment to get dressed?"

* * *

  
Staring at their house, Paige couldn't believe that things had gone this far; Piper should have been freaking out about just the _idea_ of climbing ladders while pregnant, and here she was, stripping the roof of its tiles just to clean it?

"Piper, this _really_ isn't the time, OK?" she protested, looking in frustration at her sister as Leo stood behind her, Angel watching from the porch out of a lack of any shade in Piper's immediate vicinity. "This isn't normal-!"

"I'm just prioritising; we're never going to get anywhere in a messy house," Piper said, dismissing Paige's concerns as she continued her work.

 _Damnit_... Paige thought, stepping back as Piper discarded another tile from the roof.

That was the problem with this kind of hex, according to what Leo had told her and Angel; since it drew on pre-existing obsessions, the victim could only shake it off if they were forced to realise that they were doing something significantly against their normal nature while under its influence. Paige had thrown it off when she as confronted with the fact that she was trying to force Angel to do something rather than working with him, but so far Piper was just being frustratingly stubborn without actually hurting anyone close to them...

"Hey, Paige, a little help here?" a voice suddenly said from behind her, prompting Paige to turn around in time to be greeted with the bizarre sight of Phoebe coming out of her car carrying a large turkey.

"What are you doing with that thing?" Piper asked, indicating the turkey.

"Well," Phoebe said, a disturbing grin on her face as she studied the bird in her hands, "first I'm gonna kill it and then I'm gonna stuff it."

"You are not bringing that filthy fowl in the house," Piper said.

"Yes I am," Phoebe replied, still grinning in an overly-enthusiastic manner as she walked up the path towards the house. "Thanksgiving's early this year."

"Do not get any blood in that kitchen," Piper called after her sister as Phoebe walked into the house, leaving Angel and Leo to exchange glances with each other as she brushed past them.

"Phoebe's fixation is a turkey?" Leo said, as Paige walked over to join them.

"Uh... would it be assuming the worst to guess that it might be someone she turned _into_ a turkey?" the half-Whitelighter asked, looking apprehensively between her brother-in-law and boyfriend. "I mean, she _has_ been going on about this other columnist who's been criticising her work lately..."

"OK, we can't afford to waste any more time like this; we're going to have to take this to the source," Angel said, nodding resolutely as he looked between his friends. "Leo, see what you can do to stop Piper and Phoebe going too far; Paige, I think you and I need to see the doctors."

"I'm all for that plan," Paige said, smiling resolutely as she placed a hand on Angel's shoulder, glancing over at Leo with a smile. "I take it witch doctors are fairly easy to find?"

"Just focus on the source of the hex that afflicted you earlier; that should take you straight to them," Leo said, glancing apprehensively between his wife and the door that his sister-in-law had just walked through. "I'll... try and keep things under control here, OK?"

"Right," Paige said, focusing her attention as the familiar feeling of orbing surrounded her and Angel...

* * *

  
As it faded, Angel's eyes narrowed as he glared at the two men in suits who could only be the witch doctors, judging by the description Leo had given of the one who'd visited the manor earlier, standing around a cauldron in a dark candle-lit room filled with various other cauldrons and voodoo-esque 'equipment'.

"Things are progressing well," one man said, as he stared into the cauldron.

"It's only a matter of time before they destroy themselves," the other one said, sounding far too satisfied with his job for Angel's liking; anyone who took that much pleasure in destroying lives _had_ to be suspect.

"Talk about premature jubilation," Paige said, glaring at the two men as they turned to face her and Angel in obvious surprise. "You gentlemen might want to see a doctor about that."

"Or, failing that," Angel added, reverting to his vampire face as he glared between the two men, "I could just beat some sense into you."

"A _vampire_?" the witch doctor said, looking incredulously at Angel before he shifted his attention to Paige. "I knew that you were in danger of corruption, but-"

"OK, reality check here, _buddy_ ; _Angel_ has a _soul_ ," Paige said, walking over to poke the witch doctor firmly in the chest, a stern scowl on her face as she glared at him. "He's a champion who gets missions from the Powers that Be to save people, you got that? He might not be a perfect hero, but just because you don't understand something doesn't give you the right to try and destroy it!"

"Your hose is contaminated by evil magics; I felt that it was for the best-" the witch doctor began, only to be interrupted when Angel hit him in the face with a well-timed punch that sent him falling to the floor, the vampire swiftly grabbing the other witch doctor by the throat before he could react to the attack on his colleague.

"Keep in mind that if we were the threat you seem to think we are, I could have killed him and you by now while you were busy talking," Angel said, his glare firm as he stared at the man whose life was now almost literally in his hands. "But I'm not like that, and I'm not going to kill you just because you made a mistake, no matter how big it was; what I want right now is for you to undo that hex of yours before my friends do something that they're _really_ going to regret."

"He's right," Paige said, staring resolutely at the witch doctor as Angel relaxed his grip, lowering the other man to the floor while still keeping his fingers threateningly close to his neck in case he tried anything. "We may have a lot of dark magic around our house, but it's only there because we spend our time taking it out; you get rid of us, you'll have more problems than solutions, trust me."

"We might not be conventional good guys, but we get the job done; the fact that we don't always play by the expected rules just gives us that extra edge when dealing with our usual bad guys," Angel said, staring firmly at the witch doctor for a moment before he fully released his grip on the other man's throat and stepped back, reverting to his human features even as he maintained a combat stance. "Now then, reverse the hex on Piper and Phoebe before this has to get any uglier, OK?"

"Very well," the witch doctor said, nodding back at the vampire. "I can assure you that no harm was intended-"

"What was _intended_ isn't important right now; the only thing that matters is what you _did_ ," Angel said, staring firmly at the witch doctor. "Next time you're going to do a hex like that, at least try and find out more about the people you're hexing; setting yourself up as judge and jury like that is a good way to become what you think you're trying to stop."

Whether his words would make any kind of impact, Angel didn't know, but he did know that he had to at least try and give them a chance; from what Leo had told them about witch doctors, they generally served an important role in the magical community, and killing these ones simply because they'd made a mistake, no matter how big it had been, wouldn't accomplish anything.

He might be annoyed at the witch doctors right now, but if he attacked them because of his first impression, he'd be no better than them, and while it might be an effective way to make his point, it wasn't the type of message he wanted to send.

* * *

  
Later that night, as Paige walked into the hall where Glen's reception was taking place, she still found it hard to believe that she was actually here; after everything that she and Glen had gone through, all the 'maybe-relationships' they'd had together when they were both single, here he was, married to someone she'd only met yesterday and hadn't even heard about beforehand...

But, as meeting Angel had taught her, sometimes you meet people who are so special that you want to keep them to yourself for as long as you can, because you couldn't believe that something so good could happen to you in the first place.

Looking over at her vampire boyfriend, Paige smiled slightly as he awkwardly adjusted the bow tie she'd provided for him before they went to the reception; with everyone else settling in fairly comfortably after the hex had been lifted with no permanent harm done to anyone, Angel had agreed to take the night off to accompany Paige to the reception. Not only was Doyle recovered from the Golden Gate Bridge- and willing to accept Paige's apology for her impulsive actions under the hex-, Piper had learned to accept the occasional bit of clutter in her home life while Phoebe was left feeling slightly humiliated at the rather _revealing_ photoshoot she'd done for her magazine, which should hopefully result in the other columnist she'd been having disagreements with losing some interest from his readers.

"Paige!" Glen said, smiling over at her as got up from his table and walked over to give her a quick hug. "You made it!"

"Sorry we're late; something came up at the last minute," Paige said, shrugging apologetically- no point explaining that what kept them was finding a tux for Angel on such short notice; his usual shirts were OK, but he hadn't any kind of 'wedding attire'-, before she smiled and indicated her boyfriend. "Glen, this is Angel; Angel, Glen."

"Hi," Glen said, shaking Angel's hand with a slightly awkward smile, even as Jessicawalked over to stand beside her new 'husband'. "So, Paige tells me you're a... private detective?"

"Of sorts," Angel confirmed, pulling out a card from his coat and handing it to Glen. "We specialise in more unorthodox cases than most detective agencies, but we get the job done; given your connection to Paige, consider us available if you need our help for anything in the future."

"We'll keep that in mind," Glen confirmed, smiling back at Angel as he took the card.

"Just... well, don't take this the wrong way, but I hope we never in a situation where we _have_ to call you," Jessica said, shrugging awkwardly as she looked between Angel and Paige.

"Trust us; in a perfect world, we'd be happy not to be needed," Angel said, smiling reassuring at Jessica before he turned to Paige, smiling as he indicated the dance floor. "Shall we?"

"Please," Paige said, taking Angel's hand with a broad smile as he escorted her onto the floor, revelling in the simple feeling of Angel's arms around her waist as they slowly swayed against each other as they started their next dance.

"So," Angel asked, looking uncertainly at Paige after a few moments, indicating where Glen and Jessica were sharing their own dance a short distance away, "do you ever... y'know..."

"Think about... this?" Paige asked, shrugging slightly as she tried to restrain her emotions at the thought of what they were talking about. "Well, I've given it _some_ thought- what girl hasn't thought about her... special day... but... well, y'know, with the way things are right now... I'm not sure marriage is right for _us_ , you know?"

"Because I'm a-?" Angel began apprehensively.

"Because you're Angel, and I'm Paige Matthews, and where we are in our current relationship means that marriage doesn't feel _right_ right now," Paige said, shaking her head as she looked firmly at Angel, before she leaned over to give him a brief, reassuring kiss and pulled away with a slight smile. "But someday, when everything _is_ right, and we both know that it is... well, just remember that, OK?"

Angel's relieved smile was a pleasant sight on its own, but the promise of the future that he offered in that moment was more than words could ever have expressed.

No matter what she'd tried to get while under the influence of the hex, what they had now, as far as Paige was concerned, was all that she and Angel would ever need; the two of them, side-by-side, partners in love and in demon-fighting, for as long as they would have each other.

Maybe she and Angel weren't where Glen and Jessica were yet in terms of a more... conventional... relationship, but their own relationship was still strong as it was; if they weren't there now, they'd get there eventually.

All that mattered was that they were doing this at their pace and in their own time; nobody could tell them how far they should take their relationship if they didn't want to take it further than they had so far.

Right now, Paige knew that she and Angel were both comfortable spending the occasional night together- each of them preferred their independence, even if their closets were already filled with the other's clothes as well as their own just in case either of them decided to visit on impulse- and working as colleagues in an unconventional detective agency tackling unusual cases for those who couldn't help themselves; anything more than that would be decided when it was appropriate.


	29. The Day the Magic Died

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, I give you 'The Day the Magic Died'; I figured that there was nothing Angel could realistically add to the Sandman crisis of 'Sand Francisco Dreaming' given that his fears would be fairly obviously tied in to concerns about his relationship with Paige given his vampire status, and that's not really worth 'repeating' again when we've got what's coming up in the next few chapters to enjoy

As she walked out of the house to join her sisters as they relaxed in the garden, Paige had to admit that she was really grateful for this particular event; after everything that she and Angel saw when they were out in action at night these days, it was refreshing to see something night-related that didn't involve demons and death.

Quite frankly, after that whole recent mess with the Tracer trying to steal the Sandman's dream powers- Angel had managed to avoid falling victim to that as he and Doyle had been busy with a missing persons case that Darryl had asked for their help with, although it had turned out to be a relatively straightforward solution of the other guy losing his ID in an accident-, she was just enjoying the chance to take some time out and appreciate the beauty of the world around her...

"It's even brighter than it was an hour ago," Piper said, as Paige walked over to join her sisters as they lay on deck chairs in the back

"It's like magic and science and fairy tales all rolled up into one," Phoebe reflected, staring wistfully up at the sky.

"Actually, it's ion speeding into the earth's magnetic field and then they collide with air molecules," Paige said, sitting down on another chair after delivering her quick speech; she appreciated magic, but she felt that it would do them good a times to remember that the modern way of viewing things could play its part as well. "Do you guys think it's weird that the Aurora Borealis is happening the night before the Wiccan Festival of Lights?"

"I've been so busy planning for the baby, I forgot tomorrow is a Sabbath," Piper said, her tone wistful as she stared up at the green-lit sky.

"Yep, it's definitely a time for renewal and growth," Paige said, nodding thoughtfully at the sight before them.

"Uh, please, don't say growth," Piper said, indicating her ever-expanding stomach area. "If this little thing gets any bigger, I'll never be able to snap back."

"Hey, was that a shiver?" Paige said, looking urgently at her eldest sister as Piper made a slight movement. "I think I detected a shiver. Lady, you should go inside with that shiver."

"I'm _fine_ ," Piper said, giving Paige a brief thump on the shoulder before she stubbornly folded her arms. "I'm feeling fine..."

"You didn't look so fine when you were bent over the toilet puking your guts out today," Phoebe pointed out (That was the curse of running her own business, Paige supposed; she might be theoretically able to make her own hours, but that meant that she had to be available in case a case came up).

"Nausea, headaches, all a normal part of pregnancy," Piper said dismissively. "Along with gas, heartburn, constant need to pee..."

"Sounds fun," Phoebe said.

Paige's attempt to contribute to that discussion- not that she was sure what she could say anyway; given that her boyfriend couldn't have kids, she always felt a bit out of place when the topic came up- was cut off when a goose squawked, prompting her to look at the path leading up to the house in time to see a white goose lay a golden egg before it flew back towards the mansion.

"Another golden goose?" Paige said, getting up from her chair to pick up the newly-laid egg (The most frustrating part about these things was that there was no real way for them to profit from the eggs; Angel was able to break the eggs down into a less conspicuous form, but that didn't help them if the 'no personal gain' rule applied for gifts as well as natural powers).

"You'd think the magical community could find maybe something else to give to the baby," Piper asked.

"Well, that's the hot item this year," Phoebe said.

"Clearly," Piper replied, frustration obvious.

"Yeah, I could definitely melt this down and make a fashionable ring," Paige said, smiling reflectively as she studied the egg; maybe it was time to see about treating themselves _directly_ to this gold for once...

"You are not keeping that," Piper said, glaring briefly at Paige before her attention was drawn to Leo as he hurried past the door, apparently trying to catch the goose and failing miserably, the large white bird somehow effortlessly evading Leo's attempt to catch it.

"As much as I am enjoying the spectacle," Piper said, after the brief giggles inspired by Leo's antics had faded, "I think we should really send those things back; Dad is in town tomorrow and he wants to stop by for a visit."

"Yeah, he does get very Darren Stevens about our whole magic thing," Phoebe commented; Paige's contact with Victor Halliwell might be minimal, but she'd heard enough about him from her sisters to know that, no matter how much he might want to accept Piper and Phoebe as his daughters, accepting them as witches was still difficult.

"We should maybe have Leo ask the Elders what the policy is on magical gift returns," Paige pointed out, briefly grateful that Piper and Phoebe's father wasn't hers; it'd probably be awkward when Victor met Angel, given that none of them had mentioned the vampire to him as far as she could remember- it wasn't like he visited or called regularly, after all-, but it wouldn't be a particularly serious issue. "We don't want a curse put on the family or anything."

"Yes, good idea," Piper said, before a sigh from behind attracted Paige's attention; apparently Leo had walked out of the house while she was talking.

"I wonder what the Elders want this late?" he said, staring upwards as Paige turned around to look at him.

"Well, I don't know," Piper said, clutching her blanket to her as she stood up from her chair, "but you go find out and keep it down when you come back because I'm gonna head up..."

Just as she was getting to her feet, she suddenly began to sway slightly on her feet as she looked in their direction, the usually authoritative, in-control Piper being replaced by a suddenly weaker-looking woman. "Ohh... or maybe down."

"Piper!" Phoebe yelled, as her eldest surviving sister collapsed into the chair behind her, Paige and Leo hurrying over as they quickly raised their hands into the healing position, Paige's anxiety growing when even Leo's abilities failed to have any effect on Piper (Her own healing powers were still erratic at best, but Leo _never_ had trouble with this kind of thing).

She'd just wanted to take advantage of a quiet night to appreciate the aurora borealis; why couldn't even _birth_ be normal in this family?

* * *

  
"Everything OK in here?" Angel asked as he glanced inside Piper's room, noting that Phoebe was placing a vase of flowers on the bedside table while her eldest sister was absent. After a check-in at the hospital after her collapse the previous night had revealed that Piper was suffering from high blood-pressure, in the interest of ensuring that Piper had freedom from stress, Angel and Doyle had agreed to stay at the manor for the next few weeks so that they would be on-hand to help out immediately if a demon-related problem came up while Piper was out of action.

So far there hadn't been much need to do anything other than hang around and wait, but neither of the other two men were complaining; their apartments might provide them with their own spaces, but it was still nice to feel like part of the family in a situation like this.

"Yeah, just trying to create a soothing atmosphere," Phoebe said, walking over to light a candle. "The doctors said that Piper needs rest, so-"

Her sentence was cut short when Paige orbed in holding a bucket of bubbling mud; even without his enhanced senses, Angel had little doubt that he would have found the scent of the bucket disgusting.

"Greetings from the Dead Sea," Paige said, smiling over at her sister and boyfriend as she indicated the bucket, the smile faltering slightly as she noted Angel's expression. "And I know this stuff smells, but the sulphur's meant to have healing properties; people come from all over the world just to get this stuff."

"Yeah, well, we want Piper to feel like she's in a spa, not some sewer," Phoebe said, smiling slightly awkwardly at Paige as she continued to light the candles.

"I guess you're right," Paige said, her initial enthusiastic smile replaced by a more dejected attitude. "I just wanted the best for her..."

"And that's what makes you a great sister; the fact that you tried to do something that complicated for her despite the smell," Angel said, smiling reassuringly at Paige.

"Hello?" Piper's voice called from downstairs, prompting Phoebe to smile and hurry out of the room before going down to greet her sister, leaving Paige and Angel to exchange a brief kiss hello before they walked down to join her sisters.

"Welcome home, honey," Phoebe said, grinning at Piper as she stood in the door alongside Leo, hurrying over to give her sister an enthusiastic hug. "Or should I say your highness? Because from now on we are your loyal subjects."

"We even turned your bedroom into a royal throne room," Paige added, indicating Angel with a smile as she patted Piper awkwardly on the shoulder. "Plus, of course, Doyle and this guy have agreed to take time away from their own lives to be your resident assistants in... varying colours of leather... to save on your having to deal with _anything_ too hard on your own."

"Alright, knock it off before I have your heads cut off," Piper said, looking awkwardly around at her family as Leo moved to stand in front of her as though offering to be her guide. "I don't want any special treatment."

"Just trying to make sure everything goes smoothly for you," Angel said, a slightly haunted expression in his eyes that Paige were confident she only noticed because she knew what had inspired that particular desire; after losing so many of his own siblings when he was younger, Angel had no desire to see Piper losing her child and experience the same pain his own mother had gone through.

"Exactly," Paige said, trying to take her mind off the loss her boyfriend had suffered before he'd even known the supernatural existed by focusing on the hopes of the present. "I mean, as your sisters, your midwives, your husband and... well, probably co-workers is the best term for those two... we feel it's our duty to provide you with solitude and serenity and..."

"A gaggle of geese," Piper finished, noting three golden geese walking into the living room, the birds in question honking away.

"I thought you were going to get rid of those," Leo said, his voice low as he addressed the sisters.

"We thought about it an' I tried to do it," Doyle said, walking in after the geese with an awkward shrug and an apologetic glance at Piper, "but there's the issue that I know nothin' 'bout magical gift return policies- and what I know about demonic ones ain't exactly encouragin'-, so thought it best to leave 'em 'til you got back to ask 'bout that in case it broke some rule or something."

"OK, never mind that," Piper said, her voice more rapid than normal but her tone otherwise relatively calm. "It's fine, everything's fine... it's not gonna bother me, I'm not gonna let anything bother me for the sake of my daughter."

"Come on, I'll take you upstairs," Leo said, taking Piper's hand and leading her up towards her room, leaving the other four residents of the house to glare angrily at each other.

"I thought you said you tied them up," Phoebe said, looking over at Doyle with a frustrated stare. "I ask for _one thing_ from you-"

"An' I _did_ , but the things got loose," Doyle said, shrugging apologetically at her. "I can't help it if I never learned how to contain magic geese; I didn't grow up 'round animals, you know!"

"OK, we have to do better than this for Piper," Phoebe said, sighing in frustration. "I mean, if we can't keep geese away from her, how are we supposed to protect her from demons?"

"In all fairness, the demons will be specifically trying to kill her, so we'll know where they're trying to go whatever happens; the animals will just be wandering about-" Angel began, before the sound of something neighing in another room cut off further conversation.

"OK, that _can't_ be what I think it's going to be..." Paige said, walking off in the direction of the neigh, only to be greeted by the sight of what could only be a unicorn standing in the kitchen, a tag around its neck and various empty food boxes scattered around the floor as though it had been trying to find something to eat.

"Oh my goodness, it's a unicorn," Paige said at last, out of a lack of anything else that could be said in this situation.

"Yes, it is," Phoebe said, laughing slightly in a manner that everyone else recognised meant that she was fighting to stop herself from screaming in frustration. "In our kitchen."

"Well... 'least you know people're thinkin' of the kid," Doyle said, smiling hopefully over at Phoebe in what even he clearly realised was a weak attempt to lighten the mood. "Kids normally just want ponies-"

"Which _don't_ come with the large sharp horns and is normally requested by a _much_ older kid; putting aside the obvious issues of how we're going to feed something like this, it's not the same thing," Phoebe countered, glaring over at her fellow Seer.

"Hey, there's a card," Paige said, noting a small piece of paper tied around the unicorn's neck, only for a closer inspection to reveal that the card was partly torn; while it clearly stated who the unicorn was for, the sender's name was partly missing. "'From El'. El? Do we know anybody in Spain?"

"Paige, I don't care who it's from, OK; it just can't be here now, it's way too much stress for Piper and the baby, okay?" Phoebe said, looking resolutely at her sister as she rubbed her rapidly-aching head in a potentially futile attempt at stress relief. "So just... _orb_ it out of here."

"Orb the mythical beast from another world away from here?" Angel said, looking sceptically over at Phoebe. "I mean, I understand why you don't want it, but where's Paige meant to send it to?"

"I don't care where you orb it to, just get it out of here, OK?" Phoebe said, waving her hands urgently at her youngest sibling.

"Fine," Paige said, shaking her head in exasperation. "I'll orb it somewhere safe and tie it up until we figure it out."

Reaching out to touch the unicorn, Paige was briefly enveloped by the familiar white orbs, only for the orbs to suddenly retreat back into her before they could fully envelop her body, leaving her standing in the kitchen with no sign that she'd been able to move the unicorn even a few inches.

"What was that?" Phoebe asked, after Paige had simply stood in the kitchen for a few moments with her eyes closed as though trying to force the orb to continue.

"I can't orb it," Paige said, looking apprehensively over at her sister.

"OK, standing back," Phoebe said, taking a deep breath as she focused her attention on the unicorn. "Uh... 'Take this beast, before I end her, ship her back, return to sender'."

After a moment's pause as the four of them stared at the unicorn, it became clear that Phoebe's attempt wasn't going to do anything to the unicorn either.

"Wait, why aren't my powers working?" Phoebe asked, sounding far more apprehensive.

"Uh... apple," Paige said, holding out her hand at a nearby basket of fruit, only to be met with no response. "Nothing."

"Oh no..." Phoebe said, tensing her arms for a moment before quickly giving up the attempt. "I can't levitate; I'm grounded."

Glancing over at Angel- Doyle wouldn't want to transform in front of Phoebe given her continued ignorance of his demonic heritage-, Paige was able to relax slightly when her boyfriend assumed his vampiric visage; it might not be the same as their magic, but at least she knew that _one_ of them still had some kind of power.

"Something's wrong, something's wrong, I can't orb," Leo suddenly said as he hurried into the room, his tone demonstrating a panic that the sisters had rarely ever heard him express. "I was trying to go to the Elders to find out how to get rid of the golden geese... and why is there a unicorn in the kitchen?"

"Forget the unicorn," Paige said, looking urgently at Leo. "We've got bigger problems; our magic's down too, and as far as we can tell Angel's the only one who's still operating at any kind of above-human ability."

"It is?" Leo said, his eyes briefly widening in shock before he turned his attention to Angel. "You are?"

"Well, I can still 'vamp out'; anything after that..." Angel said, shrugging slightly awkwardly at the Whitelighter. "I mean, I _felt_ the usual extra strength, but I can't guarantee how much of it I have compared to what I usually do; if magic's stopped working like Paige said, how much of my strength comes from magic rather than my physiology?"

"Eh, you're still our best chance if something freaky happens," Phoebe said, nodding briefly at the vampire before turning back to the others, her voice becoming more rapid as she addressed the others. "OK, we have to assume that whatever hit us also hit Piper, and she can't find out about this until we know what's going on because she-"

"Hello?" Piper's voice called from upstairs. "Where is everybody?"

"Why is she out of bed?" Leo said.

"I don't know," Phoebe countered in a low voice.

"Look, we need to focus on our priorities right now," Angel said, looking resolutely between the sisters and Leo. "Leo, try and keep Piper calm; Paige, Doyle, see if you can get these animals somewhere out of the way; Phoebe, check the Book and see if you can find anything about this. I'll..."

"Keep yourself available if anyone needs anything?" Paige finished for him, nodding in understanding as she glanced over at the unicorn with a slight smile. "Actually, if unicorns aren't the kind of 'good' that gives you trouble, maybe you could help us find somewhere to keep this guy while Doyle and I round up the geese?"

Nodding in agreement with his girlfriend's assessment, Angel just hoped that her faith in him was justified; his physical attributes might have been unaffected by whatever had happened to the sisters' magic, but that still left them far more vulnerable than he would have liked with such a potentially 'valuable' child about to be born, even without the fact that Piper had to be kept calm and out-of-the-loop taken into account...


	30. No Magic, No Boundaries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of bits have been skipped over, but in general anything I miss happened the same as it did in the show as the changes caused by Angel's presence just consisted of him being there rather than him making any kind of contribution; what isn't directly shown will be explained

As Paige walked impatiently through the house, she wondered how she was expected to cope with this kind of mess; detective work might be physically and mentally challenging on a larger scale with an equal lack of information, but somehow the fact that she was suddenly deprived of virtually every resource that she'd come to depend on in her present state of existence just made the whole mess a lot worse.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Angel to do everything he could to protect them if they were attacked, but if their kind of demon attacked while they were powerless, the vampire couldn't really _do_ much against them no matter how much faith Paige had in his skills; superior physical strength didn't help when your opponent could attack from a distance that stopped you getting into a position where you could _use_ that strength...

God, she wished she could just relax, but she couldn't help it; even if they'd had magic, Piper's condition would give them more than enough to worry about over the next few weeks.

OK, so maybe Piper had a point when she had complained about the lack of official medical analysis during the pregnancy being responsible for the blood pressure, but her bringing it up wasn't doing anything but making them feel worse about this mess; they were where they were, and they'd just have to deal with it.

She just hoped that keeping the whole 'no magic' thing secret would be as easy to keep secret as it had been so far; according to Leo, he'd managed to convince Piper not to attempt magic at this stage to avoid putting too much stress on her body, and he could pass off his other charges phoning him by saying that he'd been ignoring their less direct calls for help to spend time with her, but that still left them with such issues as how to conceal a unicorn without the aid of magic, particularly when the entire Book of Shadows had been wiped clean and Angel's available books tended to lend themselves to demonology rather than magic.

That was the problem with him specialising in other problems than what they had to deal with, really; Angel had a lot of stuff available when it came to confronting demons, but he just didn't have the right kind of contacts when a situation required him to tackle a purely magic-based problem like this. Doyle was doing what he could, of course- they'd confirmed that he was still able to transform as well, which suggested that whatever was happening couldn't affect their physical abilities-, but given that his own vision abilities didn't seem to be active either- although that was admittedly hard to test- there wasn't much that he could do that Angel couldn't do already, and she didn't exactly want to _force_ him to reveal his demon side to Phoebe if he wasn't ready to do it...

The only bright spot in this whole mess was the fact that the suddenly normal eggs being laid by the previously magic goose suggested that the whole 'magical shutdown' thing went beyond just taking out their own capabilities, but that still didn't give them any additional answers. With the obvious potential Trojan horse of the unicorn eliminated as a cause, all she had left to go on was the damn stellar alignment Phoebe had mentioned, and just because the universe wanted their attention didn't mean that it was making the message clear...

The sight of a bald man in a long grey coat could only be a demon on the stairs- nobody else would be trying to sneak into the house at a time like this- as she turned around the corner was the last thing Paige needed; with magic down and Piper trying to get her blood pressure down, she wasn't in the mood for a fight even if she didn't face the risk of fighting without her magic.

"Who the hell are you?" she said, shifting into a combat stance; if she just _looked_ confident, maybe he wouldn't realise how vulnerable she was...

"They call me Stanley," the demon said, his voice displaying an unnecessary sense of melodrama as he generated a fireball in his hand, the ball vanishing almost as soon as it had appeared, leaving him staring at his hand. "I was afraid of that."

"At least it's a level playing field," Paige replied with a slight smile, enjoying the demon's obvious discomfort at that turn of events; it wasn't much of a clue as to what was going on here, but at least whatever had knocked out magic had apparently done the same for the bad guys as well as the good ones...

Apparently stuck for ideas, the demon ran down the stairs to attack Paige, his arms outstretched in a very amateur attack, only for the Whitelighter/witch to grab his outstretched arms and throw him over her shoulders, leaving him to strike the nearest wall with a loud thud that Paige could only pray was far enough away from Piper's room to not attract her attention. As the demon got back to his feet, Paige stepped back before lashing out with a rapid kick that sent him back to the ground, giving Paige enough time to pull out the stake she always kept on-hand these days and ram it into his chest. It required some additional force to penetrate the demon's chest compared to the comparatively minimal amount of effort needed to do the same thing to vampires, but the training she'd received from Angel over the last few months and the adrenaline inspired by the current fight was more than sufficient for her to penetrate the demon's ribs with an almost liquid-sounding impact.

"My name will haunt you to your grave," the demon said, looking in bemused shock at the stake in his chest before he fell backwards, hitting the ground just as Phoebe hurried into the hall.

Of all the fights that Paige had been in since she'd first met her sisters and Angel, that was definitely the most anti-climactic of them all; the lack of magic might make it hard to be sure what kind of a threat he would have been at full power, but without it this guy barely registered as anything other than a human she could do more damage to than normal.

"Uh... what was his name?" Phoebe asked, looking curiously at Paige.

"No idea; wasn't paying attention," Paige said, glancing with a grimace at the body that was now oozing green slime from the wound in place of blood. "Well, that probably confirms that magic's down everywhere..."

"What's with the leftovers?" Leo asked, as he walked down the stairs to look in confusion at the demonic corpse.

"I'm guessing that their magic is out like ours; guy tried to use an energy ball earlier and it just fizzled out," Paige said, shaking her head in confusion before she sighed. "OK, so at least that probably means nobody's trying to attack us by neutralising our magic- nobody would be stupid enough to use something that would leave _them_ as weak as _us_ and then come in without a better plan than that; guy didn't seem to know _what_ he was doing without magic-, but it _does_ raise the question of what actually _is_ responsible for the whole magic shutdown thing..."

"Sorry, but I've got as much idea about what's causing this as you do," Leo said, noting the stares that he was receiving from Paige and Phoebe before they could even say anything. "I just got a phone call from a charge and her powers are down too; I had to unplug the main phone to ensure that Piper doesn't start to panic if she picks up a phone before I can get there."

The sudden sound of neighing prompted them to glance over and take in the sight of the horned horse as it stood there, Angel looking awkwardly at the sisters as he stood alongside the sacred being.

"Sorry," he said, shrugging awkwardly at them, his eyes briefly taking in the body on the ground in front of them before returning to the sisters, evidently concluding that they would have told him if the demon's presence was important. "The thing just keeps on eating through everything I use to tie it down, and don't get me started on the contact issue; _magic_ may be down for some reason, but this thing's still sacred enough to hurt if I try to touch it."

"Oh," Paige said, suddenly feeling embarrassed at this reminder of Angel's vampiric status; she'd been so caught up in what they couldn't do that she hadn't really thought about what Angel could still do that he _wouldn't_ want to be capable of. "I'm sorry; I didn't think-"

The sudden ring of the doorbell distracted them from their current conversation.

"Oh God, what time is it?" Phoebe asked, her hand over her heart as she anxiously looked at the others. "That's probably Dad."

"I'll get the unicorn," Leo said, indicating the horse in question as he hurried into the kitchen and closed the door behind him; Paige heard him calling for Doyle as he shut the door in question, and spared a moment to hope that the unicorn wouldn't cause Doyle's demon half the same kind of problems it had been causing Angel.

"And I'll handle the body," Angel added, taking the dead demon by the arms and dragging him into the nearest closet, leaving Paige and Phoebe to hurry for the door, opening it just as Angel had stepped into the closet to reveal Victor Halliwell standing alongside a fair-haired woman apparently a few years younger than him, dressed in a casual fawn coat.

"Phoebe, Paige," Victor said, smiling warmly at them. "I'd like you to meet Doris."

"Doris?" Phoebe repeated.

"My new wife, and your new stepmother," Victor replied, smiling at the woman in question.

Paige was too stunned at Doris's casual greeting to clarify that she wasn't actually Doris's stepdaughter given that Victor had no real connection to her- Victor and Patty had broken up before Paige was even conceived, from what she recalled of the circumstances of her origins-; given the impact this news would have on his actual daughters, this _really_ wasn't the time to worry about things like that.

God, she'd freaked out enough when she'd learned that she was adopted, and now Phoebe's biological father was dropping _this_ kind of bombshell into her life?

"How are you... married?" Phoebe asked, finding her voice first as they almost automatically showed Victor and 'Doris' into the house.

"We didn't even know you were dating," Paige said, exchanging an awkward hug with Doris.

"You didn't know who was dating?" Angel asked, walking over to join them, the closet now shut behind him.

"And you are?" Victor asked, looking curiously at him.

"Angel, this is Victor Halliwell, Piper and Phoebe's dad," Paige said, deciding that she might as well clarify the issue of introductions right now. "Victor, this is Angel, my boyfriend/boss."

"'Boyfriend/boss'?" Doris repeated, looking at him with a slightly curious smile at the mixed term.

"I run a private detective agency specialising in... stranger cases... but I was inspired to open it because of a suggestion Paige made after we started dating when I expressed an interest in helping people; she works there now," Angel explained, shaking her hand politely. "And you are?"

"Doris Halliwell," Doris replied, smiling warmly at the vampire. "Victor's wife."

"Oh," Angel said, briefly looking at her in surprise before he covered up his reaction. "I... didn't know he was seeing anyone."

"Nobody did, apparently," Phoebe said, looking back at Victor in a pointed manner.

"Well, it happened pretty fast," Victor said, smiling as though he wasn't even fully aware of the shock that he'd just dropped on his daughters.

"Yes, we met on the singles cruise," Doris said.

"Oh, that trip to Mexico," Phoebe said, jabbing a finger in Victor's direction with slightly more force than was required. "That was a _singles_ cruise?"

"Yeah, I'm a man of many mysteries," Victor said, still smiling at his youngest daughter.

"Any of them something I should be looking into?" Angel asked, the slight warning edge in his tone intimidating even without public knowledge of his true nature.

"Nothing that will be dangerous to them," Victor replied, returning Angel's stare with one of his own- the slightly bitter part of Paige had to wonder if Victor would be that comfortable staring Angel down if he knew what the other man was- before the smile was back on his face. "Now, where's Piper? I want to share the good news."

"Oh, god, no, that's OK," Paige said, quickly stepping in front of Victor as he moved towards the stairs; things were tense enough without Victor dropping a shock like that onto Piper. "She's upstairs resting; we found out last night that she has a blood pressure condition."

"She's OK?" Victor asked, the smile fading as he looked at Phoebe, reflecting the part of him that had helped the sisters forgive him for his past abandonment of them; even if he didn't always understand magic, he always tried to do what he could to help them.

"Oh yeah, she's fine," Phoebe said, trying to sound reassuring. "Don't worry... at least, don't let her _see_ you worry, anyway."

"Poor thing," Doris said, handing her coat and purse to Victor as she glanced at the stairs. "Young women today are under so many pressures. Is she eating enough garlic? Because it dilates the blood vessels, you know."

"We'll... have to see about getting that," Phoebe said, glancing over at Angel in time to see the vampire nod reassuringly at her; vampires might not actually have any issues with garlic, but the scent was still strong enough for it to be uncomfortable for Angel's enhanced senses, so they avoided getting it unless they had to.

As if things weren't awkward enough with magic down and the baby on the way, now they had the anxious advice of their probably well-meaning but magically unaware _step-mother_ to worry about?

* * *

  
As she stood in front of the sorcerer in her back yard, Paige wasn't sure what frustrated her more; that an evil sorcerer felt comfortable/desperate enough to show up on their doorstep, that Piper and Phoebe had to deal with a new stepmother that they couldn't get rid of without attracting too much attention to their current circumstances, or the simple fact that they were having to deal with this with Angel stuck in the door of the house and no other immediate assistance available (Leo was staying with Piper, Victor and Doris to ensure that they didn't come down and see what was happening, while Doyle had volunteered to keep the unicorn and other gifts out of sight on the grounds that none of the new arrivals knew he was there yet so nobody would try and ask where he was).

God, the only remotely positive thing about Doris was that at least she seemed to be genuinely concerned about Piper's health and have some kind of training to provide that help, and in a situation like this that _really_ wasn't enough for Paige to feel totally comfortable trusting her out of anything other than necessity; maybe it was just too long spending time in a world with vampires and possessions as part of the course, but she'd need a lot more time before she felt comfortable with someone who'd shown up this quickly.

"OK," she said, glaring firmly at the sorcerer before her, "sorcerers don't just drop by our house. What makes you think we're not going to vanquish you?"

"Because you can't," their guest said, shrugging slightly as he turned around to face them curiously. "Didn't you get my message? My apprentice was supposed to drop by this morning."

"Oh, you mean the dead guy in our closet?" Paige said, shaking her head in frustration. "Seriously, get a better messenger; he just tried to _attack_ me."

"That was what he was _meant_ to do," the sorcerer replied. "He was intended to demonstrate the dire nature of our situation."

"Hold on," Angel said, raising his voice as he looked at the man from the door. "You're saying that you had your apprentice kill himself so we'd understand the scale of this whole magical shutdown thing?"

"We're _all_ panicking right now, Angelus-" the sorcerer began.

" _Angel_ ," Angel corrected, staring firmly at the demon.

"Whatever," the sorcerer said, waving a dismissive hand at the vampire before turning his attention back to Phoebe and Paige. "The point is, while _you_ might like the obvious benefit of the demons being stuck in the underworld with no way up or others stuck topside with no way down and no way to support themselves here, things _are_ going to suffer without magic; flowers and plans will die without the gnomes or garden nymphs-"

"You know, if you're trying to convince us that the situation's bad, we've already established that," Phoebe said, looking in exasperation at their visitor.

"And come to that, why don't you just stop talking and cut to the chase," Paige said, looking firmly at the sorcerer. "You've lost your magic, we've lost our magic, this whole situation's bigger than both sides and it threatens both of us, so why don't we just forget old issues and work together to put the pieces together and work out what's happening?"

"You _had_ to beat me to it, didn't you?" the demon said, rolling his eyes in frustration. "I had this whole speech about the value of magic to the world and how we'd need to put our issues aside to get it back-"

"Save it," Angel said, staring resolutely at the demon before them. "Just get to the point; what do you want us to actually _do_?"

"A summit between good and evil to discuss the crisis," the sorcerer said. "Of course, there'd be certain rules; no guns, no knives, etc., you know."

"We'll... keep that in mind," Angel said, exchanging a brief glance with Phoebe and Paige as he spoke; neither of them seemed to be entirely comfortable with it, but equally neither of them were rejecting the possibility outright.

"We don't have much time," the demon said, pulling out a business card and handing it to Paige. "The longer magic is down, the harder it is to restore; my cell phone's on the back in case you change your minds."

"Cronyn, huh?" Paige said, briefly studying the card before looking at the sorcerer in question as he walked away. "Since when do sorcerers have cell phones?"

"You think that's bad?" Cronyn said, indicating the path leading to the garden gate with a frustrated wave of his hand. "I've got a taxi waiting out front. Call me."

With that, he walked off towards the garden exit, leaving the two sisters to walk back into the conservatory and exchange frustrated looks with Angel.

"I'm guessing none of us trust him?" Phoebe said at last.

"If it wasn't for the fact that he has a point about the whole 'team-up' thing being our best bet to get magic back, I'd be telling him to get lost, believe me," Paige said, sighing in frustration as she stared at the card in her hand. "I mean I may have teamed up with Spike last year, but it's not like I had much of a choice back then; this guy _might_ be telling the truth, but it's not like we've exhausted all our options here..."

"What guy?" Leo asked as he walked into the room.

"A sorcerer wants to arrange peace talks for the whole magic crisis," Phoebe clarified.

"Granted, it's not something we'd do normally, but hey, it's not like we don't have a history of working with evil when the chips are ridiculously against us, right?" Paige asked, shrugging slightly as she looked between her sister, brother-in-law and boyfriend.

"Y'know, I hate to admit it, but she _does_ have a point," Phoebe said, sighing in frustration. "I mean, no way around it; the future of magic and our niece is at stake here, and we don't exactly have a lot of books about _magic_ available to us even if you've got all those demonology books back at the agency..."

"Phoebe's right," Leo said, his slightly dejected tone the only clue that he wasn't that keen on this solution even if he was agreeing with it. "Without magic, Piper and the baby are vulnerable; Angel and Doyle can only do so much to protect them, and there's no way to get in touch with anyone else that could help us."

"Of course," Paige added, smiling slightly over at her boyfriend, "just because we don't have magic doesn't mean we don't have _weapons_..."

"Didn't Cronyn say no weapons?" Pheobe asked, indicating the pocket where Paige had put the card.

"And that would be a problem if I trusted him to keep his word, which I don't, so I'm not going to bother with that," Paige said dismissively. "Angel, see what we've got that we can carry without making it obvious that we're carrying anything; Leo, I'm going to need some saltpetre and some cayenne pepper from the kitchen, and Phoebe, could you get an aerosol can?"

"Time to saddle up, lock, and load, huh?" Angel said, smiling over at his girlfriend.

"Is there any other way to tango?" Paige asked, smiling back at him.

They might be out of their depth when it came to magic having suddenly vanished from the world around them, but when it came to kicking demon ass without powers, Paige liked to think that she and Angel had picked up a few interesting tricks over the last few months.


	31. Birth of the Twice-Blessed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this; I was surprised to find that Angel's presence during the fight in the pizzeria made things simultaneously more and less complicated than they were originally, although I still had to jump over a couple of areas

"You're sure you're OK with coming along?" Paige asked Angel as she gathered her weapons together in preparation for the immediate summit; pipe bombs and other assorted tools might be poor substitutes for magic, but it was probably the best they were going to get right now. "I mean, the sun might be going down, but we're not quite in darkness yet..."

"I'll manage," Angel said, shrugging reassuringly at the youngest Whitelighter. "We're as prepared as we can be, and they might not be expecting me to retain some degree of my original strength if they're all magic users; put it all together with the fact that you got him to have the meeting at that pizzeria, and we should have a chance."

"Besides, it's not like we're leaving Piper with nothing for back-up," Phoebe added, smiling reassuringly at her sister. "I know Doyle and Leo don't have much magic themselves, but it's not like they made it this far _totally_ relying on us, right?"

"Plus, didn't you say that Victor helped save you from some demonic child-kidnapper when you were younger?" Angel added, looking over at Phoebe. "I know he's not exactly trained for this, but he knows what's out there and he knows who you are; with magic down, he's probably as well-qualified to protect Piper as anyone."

"Just so long as we don't have to drag Doris into this, I'm fine," Phoebe said, looking awkwardly over at Paige as she spoke. "I mean... well, I get that she's going to be part of our lives now..."

"But you don't want to dump too much on her too fast," Paige replied, smiling in understanding at her older sister. "Why do you think I haven't mentioned to Victor that Angel's a vampire yet; pretty much the same reasoning, when you get down to it."

"If she'd just cut down on some of the personal details she's sharing, that'd be enough for me..." Phoebe said, shivering slightly at the memory of her recent conversation with Doris while checking in on her sister. "I mean, I'm happy that he's happy, but there are some things I just _don't_ want to know about my only living parent, you know?"

"Let's just get on with this," Paige said, indicating the bag containing the small number of pipe bombs she'd assembled earlier. Phoebe was wearing a chain mail-esque top that Paige had worn during her old clubbing days for additional protection- for all of Phoebe's combat training, she generally faced opponents who weren't intending to punch her in return, so added protection certainly wasn't something to be sneezed at-, but Paige had just changed into a tighter, darker top and trousers to give herself greater freedom of movement while also donning the long coat she'd taken to wearing when out vampire-hunting with Angel, leaving Angel dressed in his usual attire. "What's our inventory?"

"One flammable spray can, one lotion bottle bomb, a smoking candle, two sharpened nail files, four cayenne pepper spray straws, and assorted rings and bracelets," Phoebe said with a slight shrug. "Add in whatever weapons you and Angel keep on yourselves on a daily basis, and I think we're good."

"Rings and bracelets?" Angel repeated, looking at Phoebe in surprise even as Paige quickly checked the long coat she had taken to wearing when they went out vampire-hunting; she'd mastered the ability to hide weapons in it fairly well, but additional security couldn't hurt.

"They make good improvised knuckledusters without making it obvious; at this point, I'll take what I can get," Phoebe said, examining her now heavily-bejewelled hands for a moment before she sighed. "God, I miss magic..."

"Hey, we don't need no stinkin' magic to kick demon ass here," Paige said, grinning over at her sister and her boyfriend. "We're armed and ready to go; time to see what the hell Cronyn has for us that might sort this whole mess out."

"Amen to that," Phoebe said, nodding at her sister before she looked over at Leo. "Make sure Doyle knows we're out, OK?"

"Good luck," Leo said, nodding grimly at his sister-in-law as she, Paige and Angel headed for the main door- Angel already pulling his coat up to cover his head in preparation for the run to the car-, leaving Leo to look back up the stairs to the room where his wife was currently talking with her father and stepmother.

This whole situation was far from perfect, but at least Piper seemed to be as relaxed as anyone could expect from someone meeting her new stepmother under such volatile and unexpected conditions...

* * *

  
As they walked into Manny's Pizzeria- the area outside was a bit overly misty, but considering the low reputation vampires had among other demons it wouldn't have suggested the presence of vampires even if magic had been working-, it didn't take the three long to see who they had come here to talk to; Cronyn was casually sitting at a table with two other men in one corner, the three older men a sharp contrast to the younger diners dressed in blue who looked like they'd just gotten off work.

"This is Merrill," Cronyn said, indicating one of the men at the table, an older-looking man with long white hair and beard dressed in a dark bluish-grey robe, "our highest ranking wizard and personal mentor. Kane," he continued, indicating the other man, dressed in a black leather jacket with a surly expression on his face, "top advisor to the warlocks."

"Check their bags for weapons," Kane said.

"After all the trouble we went to convincing you to come here so that you wouldn't attack us, do you _really_ expect us to have brought weapons?" Angel said, staring pointedly at Kane. "We chose to meet you here to _avoid_ conflict; why would we provoke it?"

"A fair point, but caution can't be overlooked at a time like this," Cronyn said with a slight shrug.

Exchanging glances, Paige and Phoebe tossed their bags onto the table, leaving the demon sorcerers to examine the contents; nobody asked about Angel's coat, but considering that it had been designed to conceal weapons they probably didn't realise that it could have anything they couldn't see.

"What's with the candle?" Cronyn asked, indicating the object in question.

"We thought we'd try a wiccan ritual or two to restore the magic," Phoebe replied casually.

"Let's get down to business," Cronyn said, nodding in acceptance of their suggestion as they passed the handbags back, even if the slight smile on his face made it clear what he thought of that suggestion (The fact that they weren't realistically considering it either only slightly mitigated their annoyance at the man in question).

"OK, well, wait a minute, _bubs_ ," Phoebe said, placing sarcastic emphasis on the word, "how do we know you guys aren't packing weapons?"

"You mean like this?" Kane said, standing up and drawing a large knife from his belt.

"Hey, now..." Paige said, starting into action before she registered the sudden silence that had fallen all around them.

"Uh... did it just get _very_ quiet in here?" Phoebe asked, looking anxiously over at Paige and Angel.

"You don't think we'd pass up the opportunity to take out the Charmed Ones, now do you?" Cronyn said, as the rest of the pizzeria's customers stood up, weapons in their hands as they surrounded Phoebe, Paige and Angel. "To say nothing of the vampire with a soul, of course; for a bottom-feeder, he's been making waves."

"I do what I can," Angel said, glaring at Cronyn as his eyes scanned the room.

"Uh... and these guys are?" Paige asked, looking over at Cronyn in an inquiring-yet-uncertain manner as she indicated the group of suddenly-armed former pizzeria guests (Paige noted with some relief that none of them seemed to be packing anything more dangerous than pipes or baseball bats, apart from one person holding an axe; at least they had the 'sharp pointy thing' advantage if things turned physical).

"Oh, just a few de-powered associates who jumped at the chance-" Cronyn began.

" _Direct_ associates of yours, right?" Angel said, looking firmly at Cronyn as he asked his question.

"Naturally," Cronyn retorted, looking back at the vampire with a slight edge to his glare as though wondering how the other man could ask for such obvious information.

"Just making sure I know where we stand," Angel said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture, even as he and the sisters exchanged a brief nod; so far, there was nothing to suggest that the demons knew that Angel's abilities were relatively undiminished.

"What I want to know how is how you did it," Phoebe said, glaring over at Cronyn; so far, their obvious combat stance seemed to be putting those immediately around them off the idea of a direct attack, but that wouldn't last for long. "This place must've been crawling with customers."

"We paid them to leave," Cronyn said dismissively. "Of course, the owner wanted to stay, but he's browning in the pizza oven."

"All this just to take us out?" Paige said, glaring indignantly at the older man. "What about magic? In case you haven't noticed, that's still an issue!"

"I've got that covered," Cronyn said casually. "Which is more than I can say for you three."

"If you don't think that we came prepared for this, you are _sadly_ mistaken," Phoebe said, pulling out the hairspray can and activating the lighter as the demons moved in towards her. As the demons ducked to avoid the sudden fireball, Angel dived for the group of demons, grabbing one by the neck and sharply twisting it before drawing a dagger and stabbing another in the heart. As Paige followed the attack up by kicking Merril in the nose with such force that the nose was practically forced into his face- it might go against the instincts of her Whitelighter side, but she _really_ liked the spurt of blood that erupted from his face before he hit the ground-, Phoebe lit the Molotov cocktail they'd prepared earlier and threw it at the nearest group of demons, leaving them staring at the lotion bottle in confusion for a few moments before it exploded in their faces, leaving most of them injured, giving Angel the chance to grab the dazed Cronyn and slam him against the nearest wall.

"Now then," Angel said, staring firmly at the demon sorcerer, "you can either tell us what we want to know, or we can start breaking things... and I can assure you that I retain all of _my_ physical advantages even with magic down and have very little issues about using them on a piece of scum like yourself. Clear?"

"OK, OK, OK!" Cronyn said, looking at the vampire in a panic as Paige and Phoebe turned their attention to dealing with his minions, their respective training in hand-to-hand combat proving to be more than a match for the more amateurish abilities of their demon foes while Angel privately questioned the sorceror. "Centuries ago, Merrill unearthed a quatrain from the tomb of a wise apothecary; 'When three planets burn as one over a sky of dancing light, and magic will rest for a holy day to welcome a twice blessed child'."

"A twice-blessed child...?" Angel began to ask, before his eyes widened in horrified realisation. "Piper's baby?"

He couldn't believe that nobody on the Charmed Ones' 'side' had figured out about this prophecy earlier- how obscure would something have to be for even the seemingly all-knowing Elders not to have alerted them about this beforehand?-, but quickly pushed that particular thought aside; even if it was possible that the Elders just hadn't managed to warn them, this wasn't the time to worry about that sort of thing now.

Right now, as he sharply twisted Cronyn's neck- he was fairly sure they had everything they needed to know right now- before turning back to engage in battle with the remaining demons, Angel just had to hope that Doyle and Leo would be enough to stop anyone who might be going after the baby in question from completing their objective...

* * *

  
As he stared in frustration at the unicorn that he'd been 'assigned' to look after, Doyle currently standing in the dining-room as the unicorn chewed on some of the fruit in the central bowl- with the windows drawn and the doors locked on the inside, it was fairly secure, and it wasn't a room people were likely to use given the current mood-, Doyle wondered how it had come to this.

He'd never even have been really aware of magic going down if he'd stayed on his own as a wandering drunk, but even if it would have been easier to try and keep on ignoring his visions, he was actually finding himself enjoying the chance to play a part in this whole thing; the situation might have been complicated- and apparently was about to get more difficult; he thought he'd heard somebody yelling upstairs about Piper's water breaking-, but at least he was actually _doing_ something with his life.

He wasn't saying that meeting Harry again had helped him totally accept his demon side, but at least he was getting a better idea of how it really didn't _have_ to define what he was; he'd fallen into a bit of a slump back when he'd first learned all about what he'd inherited from his dad, but that didn't mean he had to focus on that stuff when-

Doyle's introspection was cut off by the sound of a thump as something seemed to hit something outside the door. After making sure that the unicorn was content with its current food, the Irish half-demon hurried over to the nearest door and peered out of it, his eyes widening in horror at the sight of Leo lying unconscious half-way up the stairs, his body sprawled in a manner that made it obvious he'd been pushed.

Taking a brief glance back at the unicorn to confirm that it was all right, Doyle hurried out of the room and up the stairs, quickly taking in the sight of an older man lying on the ground with a badly-bleeding wound in his chest, along with an older woman standing over his body as she turned to look at him.

"Another one?" she said, smiling slightly at the sight. "After I took out my dear husband and 'son-in-law', I thought that everyone-"

"What; that everyone else had left?" Doyle countered, glaring firmly at her. "You really think we'd leave Piper alone when she's about to have her kid?"

"Well then," the woman said, smiling at him as she raised the blood-stained knife in her hand, "time to-"

At the sight of the knife, Doyle didn't hesitate; shifting into his Brachen form, he charged towards the woman and pinned her to the ground, grabbing her wrists and pinning both arms to the ground.

"OK then," he said, looking grimly at her, hoping that his intimidating appearance would make up for the fact that his kind didn't have an intimidating reputation, "any chance we could talk about this?"

"You're _helping_ the Charmed Ones?" the woman said, looking at him in surprise. "I'm just here to ensure that the child is raised with us; she could be a great leader for evil-"

"And _I'm_ gonna ensure that the kid's raised with its mum; you're _not_ taking her away, OK?" Doyle said, staring firmly at her as he tightened his grip on her wrists; at least that talk about evil had given him the information he needed. "Now then-"

The sound of a scream prompted Doyle to look up at the door of Piper's bedroom, but the distraction gave the woman enough opportunity to force him off her. As she scrambled to her feet, Doyle grabbed her leg and yanked her back to the ground, scrambling over her body to ram her face into the floor, forcing her into unconsciousness.

"Damnit..." he muttered, desperately getting to his feet- with a blow like that the demon should be out for a while, and he didn't have time to worry about trying to kill someone who wasn't an immediate threat when he had a more immediate problem- and hurrying into the room, shifting back into human form as he took in the sight of Piper lying on the bed, gasping as she clutched at her stomach.

"Doyle?" she gasped, looking up at her friend. "Wh... what...?"

"Long story short, some loony female demon I don't recognise attacked Leo- called him her 'son-in-law', if that helps- and the other guy, but I managed to knock her out," Doyle said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked at her. "You... you OK?"

"I'm having a baby, you've just told me that my stepmother tried to kill my dad and my husband, and now my family's not here; how do you _think_ I feel?" Piper yelled (Doyle didn't even think about taking it personally; he was really more Paige's friend and he'd spent more time with Phoebe when the other sisters had interacted with the Angel Investigations team). "Just... god damnit, _do something_!"

"Uh... right..." Doyle said, trying to think of anything he'd overheard about giving birth before what Piper had just said caught up with his brain. "Hold on; your _stepmother_ -?"

"AARRGGHH!" Piper screamed, throwing her head back as she clutched at her stomach in agony.

"OK, OK, talk about that later!" Doyle said, hurrying over to sit on the bed beside Piper, working her into a position that he thought would be the most comfortable for giving birth while trying not to think about how royally screwed they were; he didn't know a _thing_ about having kids, for God's sake! "Just... hold on, OK? Stay calm, keep breathing, give it time..."

Doyle wasn't sure how long he and Piper were sitting there, Doyle struggling to keep Piper clam while stopping himself from thinking about the mess he'd just left outside the room, until the sound of movement outside the door prompted him to look up anxiously as Angel and Phoebe ran into the room, the other witch visibly relaxing as she took in the sight before them.

"Oh, thank _God_..." Phoebe said, sighing with relief as she looked at Piper. "I thought-"

"OK, nice to have you back, are we _any_ further along with the whole 'magic shutdown' crap?" Piper yelled in exasperation.

"Oh, that's been cleared up; it's all part of some prophecy thing about the baby's birth," Phoebe said, taking up position alongside Phoebe before she leaned over to give Doyle a brief kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for your help, but we can take it from here."

"No problem," Doyle said, wincing as he stepped away from the bed, his hand aching from where Piper had been gripping his as he looked at Angel. "What's all this about a prophecy?"

"The sorcerer we met revealed that magic going down for the day is something to do with magic resting for a day to recognise the birth of a 'twice-blessed child'," Angel explained, shrugging slightly as he looked at the bed where Piper was currently lying before he and Doyle walked out of the room, leaving Piper with her sister. "Don't ask me what that's all about- prophecies have never made much sense to me-, but it sounded like they were planning to send someone here after taking us out while magic was down and take the baby to raise for themselves."

"Ah," Doyle said, nodding in understanding before his eyes refocused on the woman he'd killed earlier. "So... she'd have been their inside man?"

"Probably," Angel said, before the sound of footsteps prompted him to shift into a combat stance before Paige appeared from downstairs, clutching something in her hand. "What-?"

"Powder from the unicorn's horn," Paige said, smiling slightly as she looked at him. "I _knew_ that all magic couldn't be down, and this stuff's pure magic, capable of working in any situation; that's probably what the Elders were trying to tell us about before we got distracted by Piper's hospital visit."

Crouching down beside the older guy, she crossed her fingers and sprinkled some of the dust over his wound, prompting a brief golden glow that faded to reveal an unmarked chest, his previous wounds healed as he opened his eyes.

"Uh..." he muttered, looking blearily up at the three standing over him. "What... what just happened?"

"Long and awkward story, buddy," Doyle said, smiling in an awkward manner that he hoped was more encouraging than he felt. "Basically, turns out your wife was a demon trying to steal your grandkid; after she stabbed you and knocked Leo out, I just had to take her by surprise, and, well..."

Considering that Doyle had no idea what he could actually say that would help the current situation to any degree, it was probably for the best that Piper chose that moment to let out another scream, making any thoughts of continuing that conversation irrelevant in the face of the immediate need to ensure that Piper was all right.

* * *

  
As she stood around her sister's bed a few moments later, her sisters' father and her own brother-in-law restored to full health, Paige had to admit that telling Victor the truth about Doris had actually gone down far more easily than she'd expected; maybe Doris had talked him into such a quick marriage via a hex of some sort that had dissipated shortly after her own death...

As far as 'Doris' was concerned, Paige was already resolved not to think about that woman any further. No matter what kind of relationship she'd had with them, she'd been nothing but a trick determined to threaten them who'd been eliminated as quickly as possible- the sound of the crack as Angel twisted her neck had been obvious, even if he'd done if after they were all in Piper's room-; she wasn't going to give the woman any power by thinking about her now that she was gone.

Right now, however, their only priority was to make sure that Piper had as smooth a birth as possible given the exceptional circumstances. Leo, now fully conscious, was standing b with a few handfuls of powdered unicorn horn in case it was required, and Paige and Phoebe had taken up position on either side of their sister to support her as she began to push.

"Come on, Piper," Phoebe said, smiling reassuringly at her sister. "You're doing great, sweetie, yes you are; let's see what we have here..."

Moving from her original position, Phoebe took a quick look under Piper's nightgown before her gaze returned to meet her sister's with a broad grin. "I see a head of dark hair!"

"You do?" Piper said, her expression increasingly tearful as she looked at her sister.

"What'd you expect?" Paige asked. "A blonde?"

"Just keep relaxed, sweetie," Phoebe said, turning her attention back to Piper's legs. "Relax... you're OK..."

"Dad?" Piper said, still facing straight ahead as she addressed her father, her face increasingly covered with fearful tears.

"Yeah, honey?" Victor replied.

"I'm sorry about your demon wife," Piper clarified, her voice still shaking from the pain and tears.

"Oh, hush," Victor said, shaking his head as he smiled reassuringly at her. "Don't even think about it."

"Just focus on what we're all here for," Angel said, smiling reassuringly over at Piper even as he gave Victor a thankful glance. "They tried to take the kid, and they blew it; right now, all we need to focus on is this birth, OK?"

"I'm right here, baby," Leo said, leaning over to kiss his wife's forehead, even as he shot a thankful smile in Angel's direction for the vampire's words.

That was one of the things Paige loved about Angel, really; he might be socially awkward, but when it came to the tense, difficult moments, he always had the right thing to say.

"OK, you OK?" Phoebe said, smiling with joyful tears in her eyes as she looked at her sister (Paige felt some tears of her own at the emotion of the moment, and she wasn't surprised to see that even Angel and Doyle's eyes weren't exactly dry right now). "You're alright... OK, you're doing great, you're doing great... push, OK? Last push!"

"I can't..." Piper almost whispered.

"You have to," Phoebe said, looking firmly at her. "A big one. _Big_ one! Push!"

"You can do it," Leo said, looking softly at his wife.

"I can't," Piper sobbed.

"Yes, you can," Doyle said, smiling at her in his usual jocularly reassuring manner. "You didn't nearly crush my hand only to give up _now_ , didja?"

"You can do this, Piper," Paige said, rubbing her eldest sister's arm reassuringly.

"OK, push," Phoebe said, as her sister obeyed the instruction while screaming through her pain. "Push. Come on, push!"

As Piper's hands tightened on the edge of the bed, a blue light suddenly shone down on them from out of nowhere, spreading from above the ceiling light and progressing to surround Piper and her family on the bed.

"I take it that means magic's back?" Doyle asked, looking over at the sisters.

"Here we go, here we go," Phoebe said, her attention still focused on her sister as Piper cried out, even if Paige gave Doyle a nod of confirmation. "Oh, I see a shoulder! Oh, and another shoulder! And an arm! Oh, and something else, something else..."

What that 'something else' that Phoebe had seen was hard to be certain of, as the baby that emerged from Piper was literally glowing with white orb-like lights all around it, its actual flesh almost totally visible as Phoebe cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors from a small medical kit that they'd picked up earlier, the baby a brilliant blue for a few moments after birth before reverting to a more normal appearance.

"Look!" Phoebe said, turning to look at her family with a broad but surprised smile as she indicated the baby in her hands.

"Is... that what I think it is?" Paige asked, when Piper, Victor and Leo appeared to be too stunned to speak, recognising that Angel and Doyle didn't feel right mentioning the fact in question before someone else.

"Uh, if you're referring to Mr. Winkie between the legs, yes," Phoebe said, still grinning as she adjusted her hold on the baby.

"You mean I got a boy?" Leo said, grinning as he stared at his newly-identified son, grinning like a maniac as Piper did the same.

"Here you go, Mama," Phoebe said, passing the baby to Piper, who took her son in her arms as the light above them faded.

"Hi," the new mother said, tearfully grinning between her new son and her husband, the older male grinning while the younger simply stared up at his mother. "Hi, little guy, what are you doing? Look what we did?"

"I see," Leo said, his voice soft with awe as he looked at his child.

"It's a miracle," Paige said, resisting the temptation to look over at Angel; Angel's inability to have children was something that they'd generally discussed by not discussing it, but no matter how they might have decided that it didn't matter, Angel would always feel guilty about the fact that this was the one thing they could never have...

Right now, however, as Paige looked at her new nephew- a relative she'd never guessed she would have, given the all-daughter history of pregnancy in the Halliwell family in the past-, any thought of what she might or might not have in her future didn't matter.

The next generation had been born; they could handle everything else when it came up.

"You are safe, you are loved, and you are wise," Piper said, smiling at her child, the pain and confusion of the past day forgotten as the family shared this single, perfect moment, all five Halliwells and their two friends staring at the baby as he smiled back at them. "How ya doing?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said, a bit of a more straightforward conclusion than the fight that featured in the original episode, but I intend to make things a bit more complicated in the next chapter; let's just say a certain other group of demons will be playing a part in the attempts to abduct or kill Wyatt...


	32. Saving Shades of Grey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, 'Baby's First Demon', combined with 'Hero'; hope you like what I've got planned

As she stared at her nephew as he lay in the bassinet, waving his arms and legs and staring at them with wide, curious eyes as Phoebe babbled on about how cute he was- even if she found the idea of eating the baby to be slightly distasteful when his all-but-uncle was a vampire who once _would_ have tried to eat him-, Paige wished that she could just enjoy the moment like her fellow aunt and the new parents were clearly enjoying it. Maybe it was just her experience with Angel making her somewhat cynical, but after all the trouble that the demon Doris had gone to just to be present when Piper gave birth, Paige had serious doubts that they were totally out of the woods as far as demons trying to take the baby away from them were concerned.

Now that she thought about it, that was probably why they were taking so long trying to figure out the right name to give the newest member of their family, even if they were almost certainly only considering it subconsciously; they might be trying to focus on the positives of this whole situation, but at least constantly worrying about the baby's name saved them having to worry about the demons that were after him...

"Peter?" Piper said, the sound of a specific name drawing Paige's attention fully back to the current conversation with her sisters; when she was in the same room as the baby, she tended to tune out most of the sounds around her so that she could better focus on her nephew.

"Peter," Leo confirmed, shrugging slightly at Piper's sceptical stare. "I'm just floating it."

"Hmm..." Piper said, leaning over to look at the baby more closely. "Is Peter your name?"

"Well, for what it's worth," Phoebe said, looking awkwardly at her sister and brother-in-law, "I dated a Peter in high school and he wasn't very nice."

"Yeah, you know, for what it's worth," Paige said, waving her hands awkwardly, "it's kind of the name of the appendage that he has that surprised us all so much; it might get him teased at school."

"OK, no Peter," Leo said. "You realise we're running out of Ps."

"I can't believe you never thought of P boy names," Paige said, looking over at Piper with a slight smile (It was easier to tease the new parent than acknowledge that she wasn't coming up with any ideas of her own).

"Well," Piper said, shrugging slightly as she looked down at her son with her arms folded thoughtfully, "when I went to the future I had a little girl and obviously that has changed, as has a lot of things... but... um... I'm still having trouble letting go of the name we settled on..."

"Yeah, well, Prudence Melinda might get him in trouble at school too," Phoebe pointed out, letting out a slightly awkward laugh in the process.

"Hey, look on the bright side," Paige said, smiling hopefully. "If he did get in trouble, after he's kicked their asses he can just zap them onto a roof like Harry Potter would or something."

"Kick their asses?" Phoebe said, looking over at Paige in surprise. "What happened to your pacifist Whitelighter instincts?"

"Hey, I've spent the last few months training with Angel; can I help it if I'm looking forward to the chance to pass that on to my nephew?" Paige said, smiling over at her sister.

"Talking of passing things on, what surname are we going with?" Phoebe asked, looking curiously over at Leo. "Halliwell or Wyatt?"

"Definitely Halliwell," Leo said with a firm nod. "Demons fear it and good magic respects it; I want what's best for him."

"And on the subject of what's best for us, I should probably be going to work," Paige said, glancing at her watch before looking apologetically at her sisters. "Sorry, but you know how it is; when you don't know where your next client's coming from, it's important that we're all available."

As Paige began to orb away, she heard the sound of the baby starting to cry over the sound of her orbing...

* * *

  
When she arrived in the office, she wasn't sure how to feel about the sight of Doyle reeling backwards from what was obviously a vision-induced headache to lean against the desk; a new case might be a challenge, but she could definitely do with something to take her mind off worrying about her new nephew's future.

"You OK?" she asked, hurrying over to help her friend regain his balance, just as Angel came in from his office, looking between the two and quickly determining what had happened.

"I'm... I'm fine," Doyle said, shaking his head slightly as he looked between Angel and Paige, a grim expression on his face. "But _damn_ , that one was a doozy..."

"What was it about?" Angel asked, before he looked over at Paige. "And not that I'm not glad to see you, but with the kid still possibly in danger-"

"Hey, I've set up the alarm system for the unnamed nephew; I think we can safely say that he's going to be OK with Mommy and Aunt Phoebe while I help you out with things here," Paige said, smiling over at her boyfriend before turning to look at their business partner. "What's the vision?"

"Bunch of Lister demons hiding in an abandoned building off the outskirts of the city," Doyle said, holding up a hand to halt Paige's questions. "They're pretty harmless- got a few human ties and even the 'purest' of 'em prefer to live an' let live when it comes to humans-, but something's after them; we've got to figure out what to do to get 'em to safety before what's hunting 'em gets there."

"Right..." Paige said, looking uncertainly at her friend before she shrugged. "Well, we should probably show some people out there that we're not just 'pro-human' when it comes to clients- can't exactly be working for a vampire and have racial prejudices, when you get down to it-; just so long as you're _sure_ they don't hunt humans, right?"

"They don't," Doyle said, nodding reassuringly at her. "Decent enough bunch; just a bit timid, really."

"Right," Paige said, pulling out her phone and dialling the relevant number. "Just let me let Piper know I'll be out of touch for a bit, and I'll be right with you."

" _Hello_?" Piper replied on the other end of the line.

"Just got a case to deal with here, so I might be unavailable of touch for the next few hours; don't call me via phone unless it's _really_ urgent, OK?" Paige said.

" _What's the case_?" Piper asked.

"Just helping some people deal with something hunting them, hence why I'd prefer silence unless communication becomes a necessity; I'll let you know if I hear anything more definite," Paige said- Piper was still adjusting to the concept of non-violent demons as a general concept after the mess that had occurred when they were dealing with the Ano-Movics, and Paige didn't want to drop too much on her plate at once-, before she terminated the call and turned off her phone as she looked over at Angel and Doyle. "OK, so that's possible interruptions dealt with; where to now?"

* * *

  
As she walked through the streets of a part of San Francisco that practically defined 'wrong side of the tracks', Paige wondered what shocked her more; the fact that there were parts of this city that could fall apart to this extent, or the idea that any demon would stay here rather than just take what they wanted.

Angel had always told her that 'demon' didn't always have to equal 'evil', and Doyle was proof that humans and demons could get along- Cole was just a tragic victim of circumstances beyond his control; if he'd never absorbed the Source he could have been one of their family-, but the idea of demons that would choose to live here rather than attack humans to find something more comfortable...

Paige was definitely going to have to re-think her old perceptions about the world she'd found herself in; if she was going to work with Angel and Doyle investigating demonic cases in a demon-populated world, they were going to need to recognise how some circumstances would result in them working with demons rather than working against them all the time.

After all, if Angel, Cole and Doyle didn't prove that shades of grey could exist in this world, she didn't know what did; even if Cole had 'failed' and Angel was a unique case, they still deserved due consideration for making the effort to side with humanity rather than going with their instincts and choosing the easier path...

Just as she was turning another corner, she 'sensed' Angel calling for her- one Whitelighter sense that she was definitely grateful for developing; so much easier to find her boyfriend when she was 'tuned in' to him like this-, prompting her to immediately orb to a point a short distance from her boyfriend's location, where she found herself in a run-down brick house, a door open a short distance away from her and Angel and Doyle's voices audible on the other side, along with a few unfamiliar voices. Quickly deciding to remain silent- Angel must have 'called' for her quietly, judging by the fact that conversation continued relatively normally with no sign that they were waiting for anyone.

"We gave all out money to a man who promised to get us passports and safe passage on a ship," one of the unfamiliar voices said; Paige moved up closer to the door to hear it better, but took care not to make too much noise in case she scared whoever was on the other side

"We didn't know. It was stupid of us. He disappeared with our money and the ship never came."

"Where were you going?" Paige heard Angel ask in response, his voice so low she could barely hear it.

"Briole," the voice replied. "Small island off the coast of Equador. Others of our kind have found sanctuary there."

"Sanctuary from whom?" Angel asked, just as another door apparently opened somewhere in the room on the other side of the door Paige was listening at, followed by the sound of footsteps.

"They're close," a voice that was almost certainly a child's said as the footsteps came to a halt, the kid's tone reflecting a grim resignation that no kid his apparent age should possess. "They almost got us. We lost half of our supplies."

"Rieff, we have a guest," the first voice said, a slightly hopeful tone to the speaker's voice for the first time since Paige had started listening. "It's the Promised One."

"Terrific," the child who was apparently Rieff said, clearly sceptical of the statement.

"I think... there's been some kind of misunderstanding?" Angel said, clearing his throat awkwardly after a moment's silence when nobody volunteered the information he was looking for.

"Oh, I don't think so," the first voice said. "Many of our prophecies are cryptic, but on one thing they are all clear: In the final days of this century the promised one will appear and save us from the Scourge."

"The Scourge?" Angel repeated.

"He doesn't even know who they are," Rieff said, evidently frustrated by Angel's reaction. "How's he supposed to protect us from them?"

"Rieff..." the older voice said.

"They're coming, no matter how many promised guys you throw at them, and they're not going to stop until every last one of us is dead," Rieff said, frustration and anger in his voice before it lowered into grim resignation. "You're going to get us all killed."

She heard a door open once again and what sound like the same footsteps that had entered earlier walking out, but her focus was on the sound of footsteps coming towards the door she was standing against, prompting her to pull back as the door opened to reveal Doyle walking out of the room, a conflicted expression on his face.

"Paige?" he said, looking at her in surprise as he closed the door behind him. "What are ye-?"

"Angel called," Paige said, looking curiously at Doyle. "What's happening?"

"We've got-" Doyle began, before the door opened again and Angel walked out, looking between his two co-workers.

"Is there a problem?" he asked, looking at Doyle's conflicted expression.

"The Scourge," Doyle said grimly.

"You know them?" Paige said. "What are they?"

"Death," Doyle said grimly.

"In what way?" Angel asked, clearly taken aback at the unusually solemn expression on Doyle's face; he always took the visions seriously, but something in his manner suggested that this crisis was far more personal to him than the average situation.

"First heard 'bout them back when I first learned about the half-demon thing," Doyle said, looking grimly over at the vampire and the half-Whitelighter. "I was in a low place- trying to stay out of everything, cope with the mess I'd made of my marriage, work out what the hell I was going to do with myself, you know-, and then I came into the flat one day and found another Brachen hanging around; introduced himself as a relative, and then asked for me to help him and his clan- what was left of 'em, anyway- escape the Scourge."

"Who are?" Paige asked.

"Basically, demon Nazis," Doyle said, looking grimly at his friends. "An army of pure-blooded demons; they have a big hate-on for us mixed heritage types."

"Like... you and Cole, right?" Paige asked, quickly leaping on the most likely meaning of the phrase in this situation.

"Might have been a bit more reluctant to go after Cole when he was Belthazor- they didn't really have much in the way of magic for themselves, so tacklin' Cole would have been pushing their limits-, but you're basically right, yeah," Doyle confirmed. "Very into pedigree; they hunt down half-breeds like animals."

"No-one fights back?" Angel asked.

"Sure they do, all the time," Doyle said grimly. "You can kill them, but these guys believe in what they're doing. They're ready to die for the cause."

"Ah," Paige said, out of a lack of any other response that she could make to such a grim revelation.

Even the worst vampire groups they'd dealt with so far tended to stop once you'd killed enough of them to make sure they got the message; these Scourge sounded like they'd take a _bit_ more to stop than just beating the crap out of a few key members...

"Hard to fight fanatics," Angel said, looking back at the door where the demons were waiting, his expression reflective as he considered this news.

"More like impossible," Doyle said grimly. "From what Lucas told me, anyone who tries has a tendency to end up dead, and, from what I saw later on..."

"What you saw?" Paige said, looking curiously at Doyle.

"Lucas tried to convince me to help 'em hide until they could get out of town," Doyle said, looking shamefully at the floor. "Told 'im no; good as said that I wasn't interested in putting my neck out to help 'em just because I didn't _think_ of myself as a demon, and didn't even really pay attention to his talk about a common enemy..."

"You left them to fend for themselves," Paige said, her tone as neutral as she could manage; she'd never kidded herself that any of them were perfect, and Angel definitely had a few murky spots in his past even after getting his soul back- anything he'd done as Angelus didn't count as far as she was concerned, but she could never forget the revelation that he'd tried to stay with Darla by killing humans after he'd first regained his soul-, but the idea that he had just _abandoned_ people who'd asked for his help because _he_ didn't like what he was..."

"I'd only just found out about my demon side and had no idea what it meant," Doyle said, even if the awkward manner of his speech made it clear that he recognised how weak his defence was. "The idea of having family obligations with guys that looked like big blue pin cushions... it was just a little bit too much to take right then."

"And what happened?" Angel asked.

"First vision came to me that night," Doyle replied solemnly. "Saw Lucas and his clan get caught and massacred and felt like it was all happening inside me skull..."

He sighed grimly, looking directly at Angel and Paige as he spoke, as though wanting to ensure they understood what he was saying to them. "Thought I was having a stroke at first, with all those images... but, when I went to find out if what they showed me was a dream... or real..."

"It was real," Paige concluded, saving Doyle having to voice it himself.

"You couldn't have known," Angel said, looking at Doyle. Paige thought about saying something about the possibility that Doyle could have just ended up dead if he had tried to help them, but this wasn't the time for comments like that, particularly when there was no way to know how things could have gone at that point; when she got down to it, it _might_ have been possible for Doyle to hide the demons if he'd tried to help them...

"If we're up against the Scourge..." Doyle began, his expression grim as he looked back at the room where the demons they'd just committed themselves to helping were currently sitting. "These people are going to need more than their mythic Promised One."

"We _do_ have the Power of Three available as well, you know-" Paige began.

"Promise One an' the Power of Three are good, but right now I'm thinkin' that the contractually-obligated five hundred might be a start, and even that's a question-mark," Doyle interjected, looking firmly between Paige and Angel. "You can't fight the Scourge, Angel, and there's only so much Paige and her sisters can do with magic; if we have to fight these guys-"

"It won't come to that," Angel said firmly. "We'll get them out of here on our own."

"And, in all fairness, we're got enough going on at home without me trying to get Piper and Phoebe riled up about demon immigrants," Paige said, holding up her hands defensively as Angel and Doyle turned to look at her. "Hey, I'm all for helping them, I'm just saying that Phoebe's having enough trouble committing to her job to help us with a situation that she might not fully appreciate in the first place."

"Is the kid all right?" Doyle asked, grateful for the opportunity to think about something else.

"Well, like I said, we've got a magical alarm system set up that'll alert us if something tries to abduct him, and I haven't heard anything from Piper to suggest that she's had any demonic problems to deal with while we've been here, but he's going to have some kind of identity trouble soon if we can't think of a name," Paige said, shrugging in frustration. "We've ruled out Peter and Patrick so far, Phoebe's in favour of Potter, I'm tossing Paul around but I don't feel comfortable committing to it, Philip doesn't quite have a good ring to it for me..."

"We'll worry about that later," Angel said, looking apologetically at Paige. "Right now, you and Doyle see if you can find somewhere more secure for our latest clients; I'm going to see if I can sort out something at the harbour to get these guys out of the city before they're discovered."

"Just let me check back on things at home, and I'll get back to you," Paige said, smiling over at her boyfriend apologetically. "I want to help, but... y'know, with demons after my nephew even _without_ the Scourge in town..."

"You want to make sure your family's safe before you have to worry about anything else," Angel said, nodding in understanding. "We can handle things here; just... be available."

"No problem," Paige said, nodding at Angel before she orbed out, leaving her two demonic co-workers to make a start on their necessary preparations.


	33. Where Do I Belong?

As she planted the last bit of sage and apple around the outskirts of the manor, Paige wished that she'd had the time to cover a few of the spells in some of Angel's books; his own magical abilities might be limited, but her vampiric boyfriend had collected a few interesting books in his time, and at least most of them didn't depend on all this stuff being planted before a barrier could be set up...

Still, she had to work with what they had at the moment, and with the potentially imminent threat to her as-yet-unnamed nephew to deal with, she was going to work with what barriers she knew how to create, even if it was mostly theoretical stuff that they had no evidence would actually work long-term (A part of her argued that they didn't even know if it would work short-term, but this wasn't the time for that). When she'd arrived back at the manor, she'd discovered that the baby had been attacked by what the Book of Shadows had identified as a Hawker demon- apparently they were known for taking powerful objects to sell to others-, but had managed to protect himself with some kind of personalised force field, although the thought of their son being constantly attacked was enough to dispel Piper and Leo's comfort at the evidence that he could protect himself.

"Well," she said, walking into the parlour to look at Piper and Leo as they sat with their son, apparently studying a large scroll of some kind, "the neighbours who don't already think we're crazy now officially do, but the house is surrounded by apples and sage."

"Thank you," Piper said, looking at Paige with a slightly tired smile. "I know you think it's a waste of time..."

"Until we can find something that works better, everything helps," Paige said, trying to sound optimistic; her encounters with vampires might have proven that some old superstitions did apply, but there were also others that were nothing but theory. "How's the ritual coming along?"

"It's not," Piper replied with a frustrated sigh. "Before you can summon fairy guards for the baby, you need to have a _name_ for the baby, and we're _still_ stuck on that."

"We busted out the family tree looking for some ideas, but so far all we have are ideas that _won't_ work," Leo explained, indicating the scroll in their laps. "Clarence and Milton have been ruled out..."

"And Herbert, right?" Paige asked, glancing briefly at the family tree herself before another thought occurred to her. "Uh... not meaning to be self-centred, but where am I on this tree?"

"Well..." Piper said, suddenly looking increasingly awkward once again, "we haven't exactly had the chance to update it yet, and... I mean, we don't even have the baby on there yet..."

Paige decided not to mention the fact that the baby wasn't there only because he didn't have a name yet; they had enough going on without bringing her own personal insecurities into this mess.

"Anyway," Paige said, clapping her hands together as she looked at her sister, quickly coming up with a new topic to divert attention away from her absence on the family tree, "wiccan rituals and fairy guards notwithstanding, right now I think our best bet is using that Hawker demon as a sign that we need to get pro-active."

"Pro-active how?" Piper asked.

"Good old-fashioned demon hunt," Paige clarified, walking over to where she'd left her coat and pulling out the daggers she'd started to keep in her pockets. "We track down the demon that hired the Hawker, and use him to make it clear that any attempts to take our baby will result in him dying in the cruellest manner possible."

"Uh... interesting sentiment," Piper said, as the baby started to cry, prompting her to get up and pick him out of the bassinet to take him to a nearby table. "Just... well, could you and Angel do that?"

"We _could_ , but we'll have to save that until the current case is over; we have a group of rather angry demons after a bunch of innocents, so Angel and Doyle have... more immediate priorities," Paige said, hoping that explanation would be enough; so long as she focused on the fact that they were protecting innocents, hopefully nobody would ask _what_ those innocents were.

"Well, we can't leave the baby alone right now... and, well Phoebe's too busy at work to help out in the immediate future, from what we've heard about her new boss..." Leo added, looking awkwardly at Paige, evidently uncomfortable being the one to reveal that they were essentially leaving her to handle this situation on her own.

"Fine then," Paige said, putting the daggers back into her coat pocket before she glanced down at her current white trousers and short-sleeved top; nice attire for working in a sunny day, but not what you wanted to be wearing when trying to infiltrate a demon market. "Just let me change, and I'll go."

"You?" Leo said, looking at her with renewed concern. "On your own? You don't even know what demon you're up against-"

"It'll be a magic-based demon, which means that a few good spells should keep it back and a bit of slice-and-dice that they won't be expecting should get the job done otherwise," Paige said, smiling slightly as she tested her daggers to confirm the feel of them before looking back at Leo. "Besides, I'm his godmother, and I am _not_ going to use him as bait for a trap that might not work now that they have a better idea of what to expect; this is one occasion where the best defence is to take the offensive."

After looking uncertainly at Paige and each other for a few moments, Piper sighed as she looked back at her sister.

"Considering that you _did_ take down a psychotic vampire with plans to send the world to Hell, I think you're entitled to some slack when trying something like that by yourself," she said, looking at her youngest sister with a combination of affection and exasperation. "Just... don't do anything too rash, OK?"

"Don't worry about me; in and out after making a point, that's my philosophy right now," Paige said, smiling at her sister before she pulled her cellphone out of her pocket and tossed it over to Leo. "If Angel or Doyle call, be there for them; Angel's getting in touch with a guy who owes him a favour to set up a cruise to get them out of the country, but there's still a chance that things could go wrong, you know?"

"When you're living our lives, you learn to expect the worst..." Piper grimly noted, nodding in understanding at Paige. "Well... good luck, I guess."

"Don't worry," Paige said, smiling reassuringly at her sister. "I've got it all under control..."

She just hoped that her boyfriend and co-worker had things equally under control at their end; she might have faith in Angel's ability to handle himself in a crisis, but that didn't mean that she didn't want to be there for him as well...

But, in a situation like this, she had to deal with the facts in front of her, and right now her comparatively helpless nephew needed her help and protection more than her highly capable boyfriend and colleague did.

As Paige headed up the stairs to prepare for her new self-assigned mission, she heard the phone ringing and Leo answering it, but didn't bother looking back to find out who it was; she had a mission right now, and she was going to focus on it.

* * *

  
When Leo appeared in the location where he'd just sensed Doyle waiting- Angel was trickier to locate, given that Paige had a more direct connection with him; trying to track another Whitelighter's charge could be difficult, comparable to trying to locate an FM radio signal on a radio that was only designed to receive AM, but Paige's ties to Doyle weren't as definite as her bond with Angel, which made it easier for him to find Doyle if he had to-, he was surprised to find Doyle standing outside a building in such battered condition he was surprised that it hadn't been demolished already, looking anxiously around the streets before he registered the new arrival.

" _Leo_!" he said, grinning broadly at the Whitelighter in obvious relief. "Great to see ye, man!"

"Is everything all right?" Leo asked, trying to ensure that he sounded focused on the current topic; he was used to being able to focus on the current crisis, and Paige had asked him to keep an eye on her friends just in case they needed some extra supernatural help, but with his son in danger it wasn't exactly easy to keep his mind _completely_ on the job, no matter how much he trusted Piper and Paige to keep an eye on their son and nephew...

"In a nutshell, we've got a bunch of Lister demons we're tryin' to get to safety and one of 'em's run off because he doesn't think we can pull it off," Doyle said, holding up a hand as Leo opened his mouth in shock. "And yeah, I _know_ we're helpin' demons, but Listers are a peaceful lot an' they're been hunted by the demonic equivalent of the Nazi party just because they aren't entirely demon-y; if you could just help me find the kid, we can get everyone to safety and that'll be that."

Maybe it was the fact that he'd considered Cole a friend and was starting to consider Angel one as well- the vampire hadn't exactly spent much time with the rest of them aside from Paige, even if he was making the effort these days as the agency developed-, but Leo had to admit that he found it relatively easy to accept the idea that they were helping demons (It wasn't like he hadn't known about the more relatively pacifistic demons in existence, but with the kind of attention the Charmed Ones tended to attract there'd been relatively little chance that they'd ever encounter them in the first place).

"You know what he looks like, right?" Leo said, turning his attention to the matter at hand, smiling in relief as Doyle nodded. "OK, just... hold an image of him in your head for a few moments- what he looks like, that kind of thing- and then I'll..."

His voice trailed off as he held up one hand to the side of Doyle's head, waiting for a few moments as he processed the image he was receiving while his palm glowed where it was facing Doyle, before he stepped back with a smile. "OK, got it."

"Got what?" Doyle asked uncertainly.

"I just picked up a copy of the image of Rieff that you have in your mind," Leo explained, shrugging slightly as he looked at the half-demon."It's mainly to do with you receiving visions; your mind's more open to my... intrusion, if you will. It's a basic extension of my ability to sense charges; normally I'd be able to do this with just a name, but since we're... well, since he's a demon-"

"Your bosses might get a bit uppity about doin' it that way an' you're looking for a more definite image to focus on, huh?" Doyle said, looking at Leo with a relatively neutral expression that didn't give away how he felt about that ruling.

"I trust you when you say he's not dangerous-" Leo began.

"I get it," Doyle said, smiling slightly at the Whitelighter. "You're willin' to help out; that's what counts right now."

Smiling gratefully back at the Irish seer, Leo focused on the image that Doyle had sent him, and swiftly found himself standing in a street, looking at a young man with grey skin and eyes that were covered by facial ridges in place of eyebrows, dressed in dirty clothing that had clearly seen better days.

"What-?" Rieff said, stepping back from him in shock.

"Easy," Leo said, holing up his hands as he smiled reassuringly at Rieff. "My name's Leo; I work with Angel and Doyle."

"A Whitelighter working with a _vampire_?" Rieff said, looking sceptically at Leo.

"It's a bit odd, I know, but it works," Leo said, shrugging slightly as he looked at the younger man. "Look, we need to get back to your family; Angel's arranging a way out-"

"Great," Rieff said, rolling his eyes dismissively as he continued walking. "Have fun, take some Dramamine."

"You're not coming?" Leo said, looking at Rieff in surprise; he'd assumed that Rieff had run off because he was scared and wanted to find his own way to escape, but to just run away even when they _had_ a way to save him...

"You can't make me," Rieff said, stopping walking as he turned to glare at Leo.

"Look," Leo said, suddenly having an uncomfortable feeling that he was being dropped into an early parenting test for dealing with sulky teenagers, "I know that you're old enough to make your own choices, but-"

"Right, a choice; where do I want to be hated?" Rieff said, rolling his eyes dismissively at Leo's optimism. "You wouldn't get it; you can pass in the streets. My mother was the same way, able to walk down the street... She took me out with her one day. I was so excited. Just out in the neighbourhood with all the other kids. Guess what day it was?"

"Halloween," Leo said, already fully aware of the issue; demons and vampires might tend to avoid actually causing havoc on the holiday on the grounds that it was too cliché, but that didn't mean that some of them didn't use it for the reasons that Rieff had described.

"So that's my choice," Rieff said bluntly. "I can be hated by humans because they're scared of me, or by pure-bloods who want to kill me. It's so easy, it's not much of a choice."

"I don't see it that way," Leo said, looking at the young man/demon with as much comfort as he could; it might not be a conventional situation, but teenage isolation and family conflict wasn't exactly something he'd never encountered in his career as a Whitelighter. "The way I see it, you have a choice between staying here to stay hidden on your own, or leaving here to be with the family who'll always accept you. Maybe it's risking staying with them while the Scourge are bearing down on you, but at least you'll all be together, and we're going to get you out."

"How?" Rieff asked, looking scathingly at Leo. "Because your vampire friend is the 'Promised One'?"

"Because he's Angel," Leo said (He didn't recognise the 'Promised One' Rieff had mentioned, but so long as he acted like he knew what Rieff was talking about that should be all that mattered). "Maybe he's a vampire, and maybe I'm a Whitelighter, but I've seen Angel stand up to some of the oldest demons and vampires left on the planet and come out on top because he was fighting for what he believes in; he doesn't have to be the Promised One to be your hero."

"Really," Rieff said, in a tone that made it clear that he didn't believe what he was hearing.

" _Really_ ," Leo said, looking firmly at the teenage demon; he might be about to bend the truth a little, but given that Angel had only failed them because of exceptional circumstances that none of them could have known about beforehand, Leo wasn't going to let his conscience bother him too much about it. "Your people have put their faith in him, Rieff, and when it counts, Angel has _never_ let us down. Maybe Angel doesn't know what he's doing, and that's possible, but you can't hide away and hope that everything will sort itself out without you; I've spent years being a primarily passive observer, but there are several times when my family would have died if I hadn't taken action."

As Rieff looked sullenly at Leo, the Whitelighter placed a comforting hand on the younger demon's shoulder, hoping that what he was about to say would make the right impression. "All you can do right now is decide whether you want to take a chance with your family, or walk away and lose them no matter how things turn out here."

After staring silently back at Leo for a few moments, Rieff nodded, prompting a relieved smile from Leo.

"Let's get you back to your family," he said, orbing away with Rieff and reappearing in front of the house he'd left earlier, smiling at the relieved look on Doyle's face.

They might still have to get the Listers to safety, but at least they now had all of them in one place.

Now all Leo had to do was wait and hope that Paige's plan worked out...


	34. Guardian Namesakes

Standing in the woods in a tight blue dress that barely came down to above her knees and a blonde wig- it wasn't entirely comfortable, but at least it created the right impression; the fact that she wouldn't normally wear something like this just made more effective as a disguise-, Paige could only hope that this plan was going to work. Scrying for the demon market hadn't exactly been easy when all she had to work with was an old hunch of Angel's about her ability to sense her charges translating into an ability to follow the 'trail' left by evil, but given the recentness of the demon attack it had seemed like her best chance to find a clue unless she wanted to wait and acquire something that way.

As much as she might want to catch these guys, she wasn't going to endanger her unnamed nephew any more than circumstances absolutely demanded that she do so; Angel and Doyle had their situation under control, and Phoebe had been convinced to remain at work rather than run home to try and help out- back-up would be good, but if Phoebe jeopardised her job she'd be no real use to anyone in the long run, and so far nothing had happened that Paige doubted she could handle on her own-, and if keeping things calm at home meant that she had to try a more complicated method of detective work to get where she was going than she might have done under other circumstances, then so be it.

The plan of mass vanquishing might be a bit bloodier and offensive than what they were used to doing, but when dealing with an infant who deserved a chance at a peaceful life, Paige felt safe in saying that traditional restrictions would have to be shelved for the moment for the sake of the most innocent addition to their family. She might find the dress she had to wear for this part of the job uncomfortable, but so long as she focused on channelling the more ruthless part of her- the part that she'd allowed full reign during the fight with Angelus in the presence of Alcathla-, she could still do this (And maybe entertain some fantasies about what Angel might think of the dress later)...

Then an energy ball hurtled towards her from out of seemingly nowhere, and Paige's training-enhanced reflexes were all that allowed her to dive out of the way- orbing to safety wasn't an option; all it would take was a single glimpse of her orbs and her cover would be over before she'd really had a chance to establish it-, quickly getting back to her feet just as two 'men'- although their sleeveless black leather attire would have suggested 'demon guards' even without the nature of their appearance- literally walked out of two trees.

"Lost, little girl?" one of them said mockingly as Paige turned to glare at him.

"You have a _really_ messed-up idea of customer service," she said firmly; when dealing with a situation like this, confidence and arrogance was everything to convince the demons in question that you belonged there.

"What?" the second guard asked, clearly not expecting that response.

" _I_ am a dissatisfied customer," Paige said, moving the blanket she'd taken from the baby's crib to reveal an athame knife they'd acquired from a past demon attack; even if they couldn't know if it had been acquired from the market, it wasn't like Paige was going to give anyone a chance to look closely at it and walk away afterwards. "I bought this athame here at the market. It's supposed to flame. It doesn't. I paid a pretty penny for it too. And for what? It almost got me killed trying to steal the Charmed Ones' baby. You know what I got for my efforts? A nice little blanket. Sweet, but _really_ not what I'm looking for. Oh, and the Hawker who hired me bailed when things fell apart, so I didn't even get a pay day."

"Who are you?" the first guard said, apparently still sceptical about her story.

"I told you," Paige said, rolling her eyes in exaggerated frustration, "I'm a dissatisfied customer."

With that said, she turned to face the second guard and stabbed him in the stomach, allowing herself a brief grin of approval as the demon vanished in a cloud of black smoke; it wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but at least that was one less demon for them to worry about later.

"See?" she said, turning back to look at the remaining guard, indicating the knife nonchalantly. "No flame."

The guard waved his arm and a large blue circular portal appeared between the two trees, a bustling medieval-style market visible through the portal as people went about their daily business, dressed in varying types of leather and carrying everything from baskets to large weapons (Her dress was now looking a bit vivid in colour for this place, but at least the leather theme had been a good choice).

Taking a moment to collect herself- for all her attempts to convince herself to do this, she was walking into the lion's den-, Paige walked through the portal, the world around her briefly glowing blue before she found herself walking through a dirty street in a town that resembled a medieval Arabia as opposed to the woods she'd been in earlier. Trying not to shudder at the sensation of so much evil 'pressing down' on her Whitelighter senses, Paige focused on simply walking through the crowd of demons, searching for any sign of something that could be what she was looking for, hoping that her friends and family were coping with their respective challenges back home...

* * *

  
Looking at the large ship before him as the Listers made their way into the main hold, hoods and hats concealing their faces while he stood in the shade of some nearby boxes, Angel had to admit that they'd done a fairly good job.

The conditions that the Listers were going to be travelling in weren't exactly first-class accommodation, but that was the price they had to pay when travelling in a ship that was officially transporting medical waste; at least the ship was able to hold them all in one place without anyone noticing them. Once they'd made it out of the port, the captain should be willing to allow the Listers to spend some time out in the sun rather than just keeping them locked up all the time, and from there it would only be a matter of time until they'd reached the island sanctuary that the Listers had been told about previously...

"They OK?" Doyle asked, Angel turning to look at his friend as the Listers continued to hurry up the ramp as silently as possible.

"As well as you'd expect," Angel replied, as he looked over at where the half-breeds continued to hurry to safety as quickly as they could. "A few of them want to leave earlier, of course, but they get why the captain wants to wait; easier to follow a ship in daylight than it is in the dark."

"Good call," Doyle said, smiling in approval at the vampire before he assumed a more contemplative expression as he looked at the assembled Listers. "You ever wonder if we're doin' the right thing?"

"What?" Angel asked, looking at Doyle in surprise.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm all for savin' these guys from the Scourge, but... well, we're havin' to completely relocate 'em because the world they've got here won't accept 'em," Doyle said, indicating the city before them. "We've come all this way, an' we've still got a whole bunch o' people livin' in secret because they'd freak if the truth came out..."

"They'd 'freak' because of the potential consequences if too many people knew what kind of power was really in this world or how easy it would be to destroy it," Angel pointed out, looking solemnly at his friend. "Things could potentially be better if people knew about demons, but at the same time they could be worst; like they said in a movie I saw once, a person is smart, but _people_ are a potential mob waiting for an excuse to panic. Imagine if they knew that demons were out there and didn't have the time to accept or hear the truth about them; people would react with blind panic, there'd be all kinds of public theological debates about the nature of the soul and humanity..."

He sighed as he looked at the city once more. "Trust me, I wish we could operate in public, but the positives are just so far outweighed by the negatives that it's not worth even thinking about going public; the best we can do is work to protect those ones that don't want to kill either side, and just hope that, someday, we'll find ourselves in a world where everyone can live in peace regardless of species."

"Think we'll ever see that?" Doyle asked, a wistful tone in his voice that put Angel in mind of the reasons Doyle's marriage had failed; his own inability to accept his demon side.

"We can hope," Angel said with a smile of reassurance at his friend, as the two of them looked back at the Listers assembling into the ship's hold.

Maybe these people would never have perfect lives in the modern world, but they'd be alive somewhere where they could be reasonably sure of acceptance...

A faint glow behind him prompted Angel to turn around, his brief smile at the sight of the familiar orbs fading when they revealed Leo rather than Paige, his mood only lowering further when he took in the grim expression on Leo's face. "What's the problem?"

"The Scourge found the Listers' old hiding-place," Leo explained as he looked grimly at his two friends. "They didn't find any clues, but there's only so many ways for the Listers to get out of this city without being seen; it wouldn't exactly take a genius to determine that they're going to be leaving via the docks."

"In other words, pay attention to the surroundings and hope that nothing serious is going to go down before we're ready for them to leave, huh?" Doyle said, smiling slightly hopefully at his friends. "Well... how hard can that be?"

"Maybe harder than you think," Angel said grimly.

"Huh?" Doyle said, his faltering hopes dashed as he looked at Angel. "Why's that a problem?"

"The fact that I haven't seen the ship's first mate for a not-inconsiderable while and he wasn't exactly a fan of taking demons on board in the first place," Angel clarified grimly. "I don't know if he can find the Scourge or if they'll even listen to him- hence why I didn't bring it up earlier; no point starting a panic when they're all jittery enough-, but if we could just say alert to make sure?"

"Understood," Leo said, nodding grimly at the vampire before he smiled.

"Somethin' funny about this?" Doyle asked.

"Just... I started out as a normal Whitelighter, and now I'm married to one of my charges- hell, I have a _son_ with one of my charges- and I'm working with a vampire and a seer to save a bunch of demons from another group of demons," Leo said, looking over at Angel and Doyle with a smile. "I just... I have a weird life."

"Don't we all?" Angel replied with a nonchalant smile as he looked at the Whitelighter. "Look at it this way; your focus is still on protecting the innocent, but you've just learned to incorporate a broader definition of 'innocence' than you might have done in the past."

"That's... something to consider," Leo said, smiling slightly back at the vampire before he stood up. "Do we have anything belonging to the first mate? Maybe I can find him before he does anything too stupid..."

* * *

  
Walking through the demon market, Paige wasn't sure if she should feel worried at how comparatively relaxed she was about her current situation.

Here she was, one of the most powerful witches for the forces of good on the planet, standing in the middle of a black market that specifically catered to all kinds of demons who 'specialised' in taking out her kind of witch, and the only thing that she had going for herself that the average witch might not have was training from a reformed vampire?

She at least seemed to be blending in to her surroundings well enough to have attracted a guide to help her find her way around this place- apparently her criticism of the market earlier had prompted them to send her for a guided tour with one of the market's more regular customers, although she hadn't managed to establish what he actually was or what he could do-, but she couldn't be sure how long that would last until something saw through her deception...

"Come on, guys, this is top of the line," a demon said from behind a stall, a group of others gathered around it (Paige couldn't tell if the demon was a man or a woman, given how tall and thin it was). "The power to throw fireballs twenty yards. Now let's hear a serious offer."

"Now, if you need any powers, there's where to go," Paige's demonic tour guide said, nodding briefly at the stall in question.

"You're such a great tour guide," Paige said, laughing politely at the demon's words as they continued to walk down the street, Paige briefly noting another demon demonstrating some kind of tonic that enhanced his muscular structure before she continued walking; that couldn't have anything to do with the demons she was after right now...

"I think up there's the guys you're looking for," her guide said, coming to a halt and pointing at a basic white tent at the end of the street. "The parasites."

"Parasites?" Paige repeated, looking at her guide in a casually inquiring manner. "Should I be worried?"

"Nah," the demon said dismissively. "They were bad-ass once but some witch cursed them, took away their powers. Pitiful little bastards. Even a girl like you could take them."

"More than you know," Paige said, smiling in that enigmatic way that Angel had smiled at her back before she knew what he was- that smile that had always given the impression that he knew more than he appeared to in that strange way that left her uncertain how to feel about it-, before she turned to look at her guide directly. "Well, thank you for the tour. I suppose you'll be wanting your payment now?"

"You know I will," the demon said, chuckling slightly as he reached for her with a grin that made his intentions completely clear.

"Fireball!" Paige yelled, summoning a fireball from one of the nearby demons and hurling it at her guide before he had time to realise what she was doing or what power she'd used to summon it.

"Hey!" the fireball's original creator said, turning to glare at Paige.

"He was getting too handsy," Paige said, dismissing her actions with a shrug as she turned to walk into the building that her guide had indicated; her guide had done a good job, but his actions at the last had confirmed that he wasn't the type of demon she should feel bad about killing. As she walked through the door of the tent, she found herself looking at two pale-skinned demons with white hair dressed in long white clothes that resembled some kind of cross between robes and trenchcoats, holding their hands over a woman dressed in the light clothes that put Paige in mind of the gypsies she'd interacted with in some old cases.

"Excuse me," Paige said- it was almost a relief that their current victim was definitely dead, as her head lolled to the side as the demons' hands stopped glowing; at least she didn't have to worry about choosing between saving an innocent and her mission-, looking firmly at the two demons. "Anyone here interested in a Charmed One's offspring?"

"Who are you?" one of the parasites asked.

"I'm the reason you're not gonna need that food anymore, not after you hear what I have to say," Paige replied.

"The food is dead," the other parasite demon said, as the two demons stared solemnly at her. "You were saying?"

"Just that the Hawker who hired me to grab the baby screwed up the job and got himself dead," Paige replied. "He didn't say who hired him, but I heard it was you."

"So what if it was?" the demon asked.

"Don't get nervous," Paige said, looking nonchalantly at them. "I'm just here for the bounty. The offer still stands, right?"

"First, tell us why you're still alive," the first demon said.

"I'll take that as a yes," Paige said, tossing Wyatt's blanket to the side and holding out one hand in preparation for what was about to be in it. "Sword!"

With that command, she smiled as the blade she had trained with for so long appeared in her hands; it might be a long way to go to get from here to Halliwell Manor, but she'd spent so long training her powers and her hand-to-hand abilities that she could focus on the sword far more easily than the average object. Before the parasites could do anything, she had swung her sword, decapitating the nearest demon and leaving the second with a nasty chest wound as Paige stood over it, the sword aimed at his neck.

"I know you can absorb magic, but I'm pretty sure it has to be against an unconscious opponent or something that was already being used against you or you'd be more dangerous than you are," she said, smirking slightly as she held her sword against the demon's throat. "So, with that in mind, I'm going to make this clear; you've already seen that we don't need magic to kick your asses, and we have far more resources than a few fancy spells to use against you if anything tries to take the Charmed Ones' baby from them. Spread the word around the underworld that anything that tries to go after my nephew will have to deal with us taking a more... offensive stand against you guys than our current habit of just going after the immediate threats, and you _don't_ want to know what we can do when we're on the attack. Clear?"

"Perfectly understood," an unfamiliar voice said.

Turning around, Paige found herself looking at an unfamiliar demon in the form of an old woman, her skin relatively smooth but with grey hair and a depth in her eyes that gave a clear impression of age regardless of her skin condition, dressed in a grey and black robe.

"And, in any case, I find that this turn of events matches my earlier vision," the woman said. Before Paige could ask what she meant by that, the woman pointed her finger at the parasite demon, and he was suddenly enveloped by sand before vanishing into nothingness, leaving Paige pointing her sword at nothing.

"Uh... not that I'm complaining about the help, but who _are_ you?" Paige asked, adjusting her hold of the sword to stare at the new arrival.

"I represent those in power," the woman said, her voice disturbingly calm for someone who'd just witnessed Paige in action; either she was foolish or she was confident, but after the easy way she'd dispatched that parasite Paige was inclined to think of it as confidence. "Rest assured a law will be passed forbidding any further attempts on your child."

"Huh?" Paige said, her eyes widening in surprise. "You'd _call off_ the attacks on my nephew? Just like that? Why?"

"We gain nothing from continuing this war," the old woman said solemnly. "Your actions today, along with a vision I have recently received, have proven that the costs of a war will far outweigh the benefits."

"In other words, you back off now and you can maintain the status quo?" Paige said, raising an eyebrow slightly as she studied the other woman; she seemed to be honest enough, and Paige had received enough lessons in body language from Angel to spot a lie, but at the same time she couldn't exactly forget that this was a demon, and demons had a tendency to lie to get what they wanted...

"Precisely," the old woman said, smiling slightly at Paige. "I suggest you rest well and preserve your energies. From what I've foreseen, you're going to need them... although your Irish seer will need you in particular sooner rather than later."

"What-" Paige began, just as the old woman vanished in front of her, only for Paige's mind to fully process what the woman had just said. "Oh God, _Doyle_!"

Paige barely stopped to think; sword in one hand and Wyatt's baby blanket in the other, she orbed out of the market, her thoughts focusing on Angel and Doyle...

* * *

  
As she emerged back into corporeal form, Paige found herself standing in what even her inexperienced eye could determine was the hold of a large ship, the Listers gathered on a lower level while Paige was standing on an upper walkway. Glancing around she quickly saw Angel- he was a bit out of range, but she'd seen him in action enough times to recognise his fighting style even without his distinctive long black coat- fighting with at least four demons dressed in blue suits that put Paige in mind of Nazi uniforms from old war movies, their faces being covered with what looked like patches of skin torn from other beings.

Moving rapidly from one opponent to the next, Angel knocked them down with an ease that was almost disturbing in its efficiency, throwing one over his shoulder and striking another two in the stomachs with powerful punches before using a crowbar to hit a fourth in the head. As a fifth demon in a more elaborate version of the suit worn by the others charged towards Angel, they exchanged a few quick blows before the new opponent and Angel fell over a railing towards a lower-level catwalk, only for Paige's attention to be drawn to another part of the hold as a large device was lowered from the hatch in the hold roof into the large room.

For a moment, Paige thought about going down to help Angel, but quickly changed her mind; Angel could handle himself, but she doubted that the mysterious device they were lowering into the hold would be beneficial for anyone. Acting on impulse as she discarded her wig- the damn thing was getting distracting anyway-, Paige orbed up towards the ship's upper deck, noted where the crane was being operated from on the nearby dock, and orbed down to it, rapidly slashing at the demons surrounding the crane controls they were using as she returned to corporeal form; the nearest demon went down almost instantly, her sword tearing through the front part of her opponent's neck and leaving it practically halved, with Paige managing to kick out at another demon as it advanced towards her, only to privately curse as her attempted attack knocked the demon into the crane controls with enough force to break the control levers that would have allowed her to remove the beacon. With her last opponent down for the count, Paige ran back up the gangplank to the upper hatch leading into the hold, looking down into the hold as the device- its appearance put Paige in mind of a multi-sided dice surrounded by a square frame- began to glow. For a moment, Paige prepared to orb onto the framework surrounding the device to shut it down- she could make out a panel on the side that probably contained some kind of power source for the illuminated parts, but that plan failed when she found herself reeling back, clutching her stomach in pain as she stared at the device below her, the Listers running around beneath it in a panic.

She might have little experience in how science and magic interacted, but if that freaky light wasn't disrupting her ability to orb somehow, she'd be _very_ surprised...

Stuck for any possible route or door that would take her safely back down to the hold in time to make a difference, Paige could do nothing more than watch as Angel broke his opponent's neck on the lower level and ran back up to the upper gangwalk, where he and Doyle exchanged brief conversations after Doyle's attempt to open the doors confirmed that the hold was locked; Paige might have stopped the demons lowering this device all the way into the hold, but even if she didn't know what it was, in its current position it would probably be able to do _something_ damaging to everyone inside it.

Without any ideas what she could do to help her friends- it was too far for her to jump down to the device without magic, and the crane controls were too damaged for her to do anything about it at this end even if she had enough time before that device did whatever it was meant to do-, Paige could only watch as Angel and Doyle spoke for a moment before Doyle, having placed his hand on Angel's shoulder, suddenly punched Angel, knocking him off the catwalk once again. Paige barely had time to wonder what Doyle was up to before he assumed his demon visage and leapt towards the device in the centre of the room; evidently, Doyle had decided to save Angel from making contact with the device by doing it himself.

"NO!" Paige yelled in horror, the scent of burning flesh reaching her nostrils as Doyle landed on the glowing device; whatever it was doing to Doyle, anything that caused that kind of damage _just_ after anyone came in contact with it couldn't be positive by any stretch of the imagination. Straining with her still-immobilised powers, waiting desperately for some hint that whatever was blocking her powers had stopped, Paige could only just glimpse Doyle through the blinding light generated by the device, his demonic features fading back to human form as he grabbed some kind of cable from underneath what looked like the device's control panel, straining against it even as his skin began to turn red, putting her in mind of the half-buried memories she had of witnessing her parents' deaths in that terrible car accident so many years ago...

Then she glimpsed the cable Doyle was pulling at come apart, and the sudden surge of power she felt as the Beacon's disruptive influence faded was all the time Paige needed; wordlessly thrusting her hands forward, she watched as Doyle turned into shimmering orbs before he appeared on the upper deck alongside her, leaving the light of the device he'd been attacking to dim into nothingness as Paige crouched down beside her friend. She tried not to wince at the scent of burnt flesh; Doyle's clothes were almost certainly ruined, and what parts of his skin were visible seemed to have been burned down to the muscle, to say nothing of the fact that his sleeves seemed to have virtually melted into his arms, but he was still breathing.

Everything else was something that she could possibly deal with- her experience at healing was limited, but with Angel's encouragement she was really getting better at it-, but if Doyle had actually _died_...

Holding her hands over him as she pushed her doubts aside- he was still alive, which meant he could still be saved-, Paige concentrated all of her healing energy into repairing the damage Doyle had sustained, watching with relief as the worst of the burns faded and shirt began to detach itself from where it had been nearly burnt into his skin. After a few moments, Paige began to feel her magic ceasing to work on Doyle despite her efforts- evidently Doyle's demon half had begun to 'resist' her Whiteligher magic-, prompting her to lower her hands as she took in her friend's condition; he still had some not-inconsiderable burns around his hands and face in particular, and judging by his shallow breathing there was the possibility of some long-term damage, but so long as she gave him the time to rest his demon half should be able to handle the rest of the injuries.

" _Paige_!" a voice yelled, quickly revealing its source to be Angel as the ensoulled vampire vaulted out of the hold with such force that Paige could almost believe that vampires could fly as he landed on the deck beside her, looking anxiously between her and Doyle. "Is he- are you-?"

"He's... going to live, anyway; I can't say how long it'll take him to get back to normal," Paige said, staring apologetically down at Doyle's battered form before she looked back at Angel. "Sorry I couldn't get him off sooner; something about that thing was disrupting my magic, and I couldn't orb him away until he'd shut it down..."

"He's alive, Paige," Angel said, smiling as he crouched down beside her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder before he turned his attention back to Doyle, winching at the obvious pain that his friend was in. "We can handle everything else from there."

Looking down at her friend, Paige couldn't help but smile at the thought of what they'd just accomplished; she'd saved her nephew from potential demonic attacks- as far as she knew, anyway-, taken out a couple of demons, saved some innocent half-breed demons, and then managed to save her friend from something that would have burnt him to a crisp if she hadn't taken action in time.

Admittedly, she still didn't know what that old demon she'd met earlier had to gain from that truce that she'd mentioned, but the woman had definitely _sounded_ sincere, and anything powerful enough to defeat a demon that easily could have just as easily tried to kill her if she'd been so inclined...

Right now, she was going to focus on the good of the situation that she found herself in; she could worry about the potential motives once she was sure that Doyle was going to be all right.

* * *

  
"So, this demon you ran into... she declared peace because they were afraid of the consequences if they kept trying to take the baby?" Piper asked, looking sceptically at Paige as the Halliwells and Leo stood around the bassinet, looking with a renewed sense of peace at the son and nephew who was now spared from most conventional demonic attacks.

"Well, from what she said, 'peace' is only the right term if you consider our normal lives peaceful- we can still expect demon attacks, but we won't have the rank and file demons going after Baby Halliwell here-, but that's the gist of what she said, anyway," Paige confirmed. "I know it's a potentially worrying bit of news, but it's not like we can afford to ignore that offer; besides, given what she told me about Doyle, I think we have to agree that she's got to have _some_ kind of vision-related power to know he was about to be in danger, so she probably wasn't completely lying about the vision thing."

"Yeah, about that warning she gave you; Doyle's... going to be all right, right?" Phoebe asked, looking anxiously over at Paige.

"Just got a call from Angel at the hospital a few minutes ago," Paige confirmed, quickly reminding herself to stick to the cover story she and Angel had come up with; Dole was more willing to tell the others about his real heritage soon, but he wanted to do it in person. "Doyle's going to need some time to fully recover- something about that Beacon device he was exposed to disrupted his body chemistry slightly so that we couldn't heal him completely on our own-, but the doctors say he's making good progress, and should be back to normal in a few months with just a few burns; just give him some time, and he'll be back on his feet."

"And... the Listers?" Leo asked; he'd been feeling guilty about the injuries Doyle had sustained while he was busy looking for the first mate since she'd told him what had happened, even as Angel and Paige both assured Leo that he couldn't have done anything to help them even if he had been available at the time of the attack.

"Set off for their colony once we cleared the remnants of that thing the Scourge dumped in the ship out of the hold," Paige confirmed, smiling reassuringly at her brother-in-law. "I orbed some of the rarer components into the sea and Angel smashed up the larger bits; considering that Angel killed the guy who created it, somehow, I don't think the Scourge'll be trying that again."

"Saving demons from demons..." Phoebe mused, looking reflectively at her sisters. "I can't decide if I should feel nostalgic or weird."

"Just focus on the fact that we did good and leave it at that," Paige said firmly, before looking back down at the baby lying before them. "So, talking of doing good... still no idea for names for the little guy, huh?"

"Actually," Piper said, smiling thoughtfully at her youngest sister, "given how you ended up taking point and acting to protect the baby- and considering that Doyle was just willing to give his life to save a bunch of innocents from the demon equivalent of the Nazi party-, I have the perfect _middle_ names for him."

"Middle names?" Phoebe repeated.

"Yep," Piper confirmed with a nod. "Allen Matthew, in honour of his _very_ heroic Uncle Doyle, and his super-protective Aunt Paige."

Paige wasn't sure what shocked her more; that she was included in the name of her first nephew, or that _Doyle_ was included.

He'd spent so long feeling out of place in social situations since he learned what he was, and now Piper had just named her _son_ after him...

"I think that's a great idea," Phoebe said, grinning in approval at Piper.

"What do you think?" Piper asked, turning to look at Leo.

"Yeah," Leo confirmed, smiling warmly at Paige. "After what Doyle was willing to do for people he'd never met... I'd be proud if my son grew up to have _half_ his courage."

"Well... thanks," Paige said with a smile of her own, stuck for anything else she could say in this situation, particularly when she felt like she should be feeling touched for Doyle's sake as well as her own. "And... I'm sure Doyle would say the same if he was here."

"And I also have an idea for his first name," Piper added. "Wyatt, in honour of his very protective daddy."

"Really?" Leo said, looking at his wife in surprise. "Well, it doesn't start with a P."

"Ah, so we break the tradition," Piper said, shrugging dismissively. "We're witches who hunt demons with the aid of an ensoulled vampire and an Irish ex-drunk; we stopped being traditional a _long_ time ago."

"Why don't we ask him what he thinks?" Phoebe asked, picking the baby up and grinning at him. "W... that's probably your job."

As she passed the baby to his mother, Piper smiled as she studied the infant, grinning at the sight and warmth of her son in her arms.

"Wyatt Allen Matthew Halliwell," she said, her voice soft as she studied her son. "Is that your name? What do you think? It's a good one."

As Paige reached out to stroke her nephew's head, while Phoebe touched one of his hands with her finger, she could have sworn that she saw the newly-named baby smile.

She wasn't sure what she was more excited about; that the baby had a name at last, or that Piper- Piper Halliwell-Wyatt, who'd had so relatively little contact with Doyle- already thought of him as an uncle to her son without him even needing one date with one of them...

Their family was strange and complicated, but it was _theirs_... and now, they'd just added Wyatt Allen Matthew Halliwell to it.


	35. The Rogue Demon Hunter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we begin another part of this series, with an adventure that will eventually feature the first reference to a particular canonical foe of Angel's from the show, as well as well as bringing in a _very_ particular ally...  
> A brief reference to the _Charmed_ novel "Something Wiccan This Way Comes"- where the sisters travel to a Wiccan convention in Las Vegas to investigate disappearing witches- and the _Angel_ comic "Blood and Trenches"- set in World War One, Angel investigates vampire activity in the trenches-, but specific knowledge of those plots aren't needed, and I'll explain the essential details when the time comes

Sitting behind her desk, Paige had to admit that she was far more bored with her current state than she'd expected. It wasn't like she and Doyle had ever been especially close- she liked the guy and they'd chatted, but in the end they were primarily colleagues at work brought together by their mutual friendship with Angel-, but now that he was absent, she was starting to realise just how much more relaxing this place had been without him. She and Angel might be free to spend more time together, but it wasn't like they could allow themselves to completely forget about their job- it wouldn't exactly give potential clients a good impression to find the private detectives they were thinking of hiring having sex on the desk-, and there was only so much they could do in the absence of a case.

_Could I have done anything if I'd been there from the beginning?_

It was the question that Paige had been asking herself since she'd managed to get Doyle to the hospital and learned the full extent of his injuries- so serious even after she'd healed the worst of the damage that he was going to be taken off the field for the next few weeks even with his demonically-enhanced healing-, even as she knew that it was pointless; the device that the Scourge had used had only appeared on the scene shortly before she'd arrived, and she wasn't even entirely sure if she'd have been able to orb the device's power source or whatever was controlling it out of the thing even if she'd known what it was.

She'd done what she could to save Doyle's life, and that was that; the fact that he was still recovering from the sheer extent of the injuries he'd sustained sucked, but at least he was still alive to recover...

The sound of a door knocking distracted Paige from her earlier reflections, prompting her to get up and walk over to the office door. Opening it, Paige was momentarily startled to find herself facing a reddish-pink-skinned demon with small horns on his high forehead and pointed ears that drooped slightly at the top, but tamed her initial response before she said anything inappropriate; anything trying to kill them would have just crashed through the door rather than bothered to knock.

"Uh... hi," she said, stuck for a more appropriate response to this demon's appearance on their door; even after over a year dating Angel, she was unused to interacting with demons in an environment where they weren't trying to kill her.

"Hi," the demon said, nodding briefly at her before he walked past her and into Angel's office, where the vampire had been looking over some paperwork that Darryl had given them recently; with Angel now a licensed investigator, Darryl had taken the opportunity to get a second opinion on a few cold cases with potential supernatural ties.

"Yes?" Angel asked, looking up at the new arrival as he put the files to one side.

"You're him, right?" the demon asked. "You're the guy, the- the vampire with a soul?"

"I'm Angel," Angel confirmed, before he indicated Paige. "This is Paige, my partner. What's the problem?"

"You've gotta help me!" the demon said, looking earnestly at Angel as he placed his hands together in a prayer-like manner (Paige wondered suddenly if it would be considered blasphemous for a demon to pray). "I-I mean that's what you do, right? You help the helpless? You protect the, what do you call them? The... helpless?"

"Something like that," Angel said, exchanging a glance with Paige- clearly he was as surprised at how jittery this guy seemed to be as she was- before he looked back at the demon. "What's the problem?"

"Call me Barney," the demon replied. "First off you should know right away before there is any misunderstanding: I'm a demon."

"I... appreciate the candor," Angel said, out of a lack of any more appropriate response to make to such a statement.

"Secondly," Barney continued, "I just realized; it's 3:45 in the afternoon. If you're a vampire, why aren't you in your coffin?"

"Coffin..." Angel groaned, staring up at the ceiling. "I _hate_ that stereotype..."

"Vampires just need to avoid the sunlight and they're fine; they're nocturnal out of _necessity_ , but that doesn't mean they _can't_ be up and about in daylight so long as they're not directly exposed to it," Paige said, looking at Barney in slight surprise. "You're telling me you didn't know that?"

"Vamps and demons... we don't really socialise much," Barney said, shrugging slightly at Paige before he looked back at Angel. "Anyway, I'm being hunted by something, and I need your help to stop it."

"Who's hunting you?" Angel asked, his attention focused on this new case.

"I don't know," Barney said, his hands waving about as he spoke; clearly the current topic had him very worried. "But whoever he is, he's unstoppable. Like a machine. Been on my tail for a few states, ever since Phoenix; pulled out all the stops to shake him, but he keeps on coming."

"What makes you think he wants to hurt you?" Paige asked.

"I don't think he's tracking me down to tell me that I've won the Publishers' Clearing House," Barney replied grimly. "He's an assassin."

"Is he a demon?" Angel asked.

"He could be," Barney replied, suddenly thoughtful as he turned over this suggestion. "He knows all the haunts and hangouts. It seems wherever I go he's just a step or two behind. You know, it's a _miracle_ that I've eluded him this long."

"Why you?" Paige asked.

"What do you mean?" Barney asked, apparently confused by this question.

"Who are you?" Angel said, standing up to look at Barney; at full height he was almost a head taller than Barney.

"That's what I'm saying," Barney said, looking earnestly at Angel. "I'm nothing. I'm a nobody. I'm just a guy trying to get by in this world. No different from anybody else!"

"And someone's spending all this time chasing you across state lines because...?" Paige asked, raising a critical eyebrow as she looked at Barney.

"Well... OK, look, I never said I was a Boy Scout," Barney said, initially awkward before he sighed in frustrated acceptance. "I'm an empath demon. I can read emotions. It gives me a slight advantage at cards. You know, Black Jack, Poker. Ooh, it's also good for the fights."

"So you're a cheat," Angel said simply.

"I chose to think of it as going with my strengths," Barney clarified, wincing as he registered the glares the two detectives were directing at him. "Look, whatever. I'm a demon. I'm evil. But hey, I'm not, you know, _evil_!"

"And you can't think of anyone that's got a beef with you?" Angel asked, leaning against the desk as Barney sat down in the chair opposite, leaving Paige to take up position behind the desk.

"No one!" Barney protested, before he shrugged in resignation. "But like my old man always said: you can't please everybody. So you're gonna help me?"

Looking thoughtfully at Barney for a moment, Angel sighed and nodded.

"All right," he said, standing up as he looked at Barney. "If this guy's tracking you, where are you staying at the moment?"

* * *

  
As he lay in hospital, Doyle could only wince at the strain he felt over his burned limbs whenever he tried to move them, muscles stretching the tender skin and triggering new waves of agony.

He knew that he could be in worse condition than how he felt at the moment- if it hadn't been for Paige, he'd probably be dead-, but that didn't mean it didn't smart to feel the burned skin where he'd been exposed to the beacon; even when he was trying to do the right thing, his damn demon heritage _still_ had to bollocks everything up for him...

God, even things with Phoebe were at a new low these days; just when she was getting over Cole's death, she _had_ to go and get that new charismatic 'Jason' sod as her editor...

He'd saved a bunch of innocent victims from a group of demon Nazis; would it be too much for him to get the girl?

As he was reaching over to get a drink of water to calm his still-tender throat after a sudden coughing fit, he suddenly fell backwards onto his bed as a vision ripped through his head, revealing a vague impression of various objects- the vision moved by them too quickly for him to register what they were in specific detail- gathered around a grey object that looked like it could be some kind of statue...

He didn't know what it was, but it answered one question; apparently his visions didn't come with the option of taking compassionate leave, regardless of the severity of injuries.

"Damnit..." he muttered, glaring out of the window at the sky above him. "Ain't you ever heard of giving a guy sick leave?"

Groaning in frustration, he pulled himself into a sitting position and hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the pain in his legs as he stood up and walked over to the wardrobe where Phoebe had left his new set of clothes after he'd been checked in (His old ones having been virtually destroyed during his encounter with the Beacon).

He'd try and call the office to get back in touch with them that way, but if they were out...

Well, he'd just have to push his demonic healing to its limit and see what he could take later on; he didn't have any of their mobile numbers memorised, but the office was nearer than any of their houses, and the phone there at least had the relevant contact details programmed into it...

* * *

  
Walking into the brick building that Barney had identified as his current accommodation, Angel was once again struck by the contrast that could exist in a single town; the thought that this kind of dilapidated structure could exist in the same city as the Halliwells' house reflected one of the many fundamental problems with the world of the present...

Still, with Barney waiting in the apartment for safe keeping, the dilapidated nature of the current structure probably worked in their favour; there was less need for them to worry about being too quite when dealing with something that would be unlikely to have too many people in it in the first place.

Casually taking the lead as he walked into the building with Paige close behind him- it wasn't exactly sexist, given that Angel would be better equipped to cope with anything that might be lying in wait for them inside the building-, the vampire and the witch took the elevator up to the floor where Barney's room was located, subsequently walking up to the room's door through a darkened hallway with flickering lights that seemed on the verge of cutting out, putting Paige in mind of various bad horror movies. Opening the door to Barney's room with the key he had provided for them, Paige walked quietly into the room after a quick glance confirmed that there was nobody immediately inside it- the furniture was pretty basic, but at least it seemed to be in fairly good condition-, only for Angel to suddenly feel something push him through the door before he had started walking himself.

"What the-?" Angel said, turning around sharply to look at the new figure.

"Hello there," the new arrival said in a cool, controlled voice- along with what was almost certainly meant to be a threatening tone, even if the British accent didn't quite help him- as he stepped into the room, revealing a man about Angel's physical age with glasses and short dark hair dressed in a leather jacket and trousers that gave Angel the impression of a student trying too hard to look 'bad-ass', except for the obvious crossbow in his hands. "And who might you two be?"

"You know, considering that the owner of this apartment _asked_ us to be here, shouldn't we be asking you that question?" Paige asked, holding up the key Barney had given them as she raised a critical eyebrow while looking at the other man; after everything else she'd faced since becoming a witch, a crossbow wasn't going to intimidate her.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, rogue demon hunter," the man replied grimly, still aiming the crossbow at them both. "I won't ask again; who might you be?"

"Paige Matthews," Paige replied, staring coolly back at the new arrival.

"Angel," Angel responded, before his eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he stared at the other man. "Wyndam-Pryce... was your grandfather Geoffrey Wyndam-Pryce?"

"How do you know that?" Wesley asked, aiming his crossbow at Angel.

"He was a member of the Watcher's Council during the First World War; I... read a bit about his activities during some research," Angel said- Paige guessed that there was more to it than that, but didn't need over a year's worth of supernatural experience to know that it wouldn't be a good idea to mention the fact that Angel was a vampire when faced with a crossbow bolt-, staring contemplatively at the other man. "I thought the Council kept membership in the family; what are you doing working as a... rogue demon hunter?"

"The Council?" Paige asked.

"The Watcher's Council," Angel explained. "They're the organisation responsible for monitoring the Vampire Slayer and related demonic activities; membership normally goes down the family-"

"Hold on; what's the Vampire Slayer?" Paige repeated in confusion; she thought she recalled reading something about that in one of Angel's books, but the precise definition eluded her...

"Basically, a girl responsible for fighting the soulless class of vampire," Angel elaborated. "Upon the death of the previous Slayer, a new girl- typically mid-teens- receives strength, speed, and stamina capable of allowing them to go up against most common vampires, with even able to oppose stronger and older physical-based demons with enough training-"

" _I'm_ asking the questions here," Wesley said, looking grimly between the two detectives. "I think it only fair to warn you, any sudden movement and I'd be forced to-"

Rolling his eyes, Angel casually batted the crossbow out of his hand, prompting a momentary panicked expression on Wesley's face before he collected himself and looked back at the other two.

"Right," the British man said, apparently still trying to present the impression that he was in control despite his obvious discomfort at how easily he had been disarmed. "You had a question?"

"Well... what are you doing not working for the Council?" Angel asked, looking curiously at the other man. "From what I... heard about your grandfather, your family were pretty dedicated members of the group?"

"What makes you so sure I'm not?" Wesley asked, staring defiantly back at the vampire.

"Somehow, I don't think this is the image the Council's trying to create," Angel said, indicating Wesley's leather attire.

"In point of fact I no longer work for the Council," Wesley said, walking solemnly away from Angel and Paige, attempting to lean on the bed with one foot in a thoughtful pose only for the impression to be ruined when his foot slipped on the edge of the bed. "I came to the conclusion that I was of greater value to the cause working autonomously."

"Oh," Angel said, looking curiously at him. "They fire you?"

"Certainly not," Wesley said, looking at Angel with a brief glare, a slight edge in his eyes before he continued speaking. "I simply felt that... after the death of my assigned Slayer... there was little point in remaining with them. I now work as a rogue demon hunter."

"Ah," Paige said- something about that story didn't sound quite right, but she wasn't about to ask questions about something that had led to someone dying-, before looking curiously at the British man. "And... that led you to be chasing after our client, why?"

"Your client?" Wesley repeated, looking at Paige with a pointed stare.

"We run a private detective agency specialising in supernatural cases," Angel explained, indicating himself and Paige. "We were contacted by the demon you've been hunting for protection-"

"You're _helping_ that... that _thing_?" Wesley said, looking incredulously at them.

"Thing?" Paige repeated sceptically. "He's not much to look at, I admit, but he's pretty harmless from what I've seen..."

"He's left a trail of corpses, human and demon, _all_ mutilated!" Wesley said, staring indignantly at them.

"Mutilated?" Paige said, looking at the hunter in surprise; that _definitely_ didn't fit the Barney she'd met in the office.

"Each of the victims possessed some unique power; telepathy, poison tongues, healing hands," Wesley explained, walking up to Angel as he spoke as though wanting to ensure that the vampire understood what he was hearing. "Whatever the physical source of their power, it was ripped, gouged, torn, from their corpses."

"Oh," Paige said, shuddering briefly at the memory of that witch conference she and her sisters had attended in Las Vegas shortly after Angel had lost his soul; those sisters might have planned to steal the powers of other witches, but at least they hadn't been planning to resort to mutilation to get them...

"Why he's collecting powers, I can only guess," Wesley said, shaking his head grimly as he paced around the room. "The fiend has cut a swath across half the continent. I almost caught up with it in Phoenix. Got a pretty fair look, too."

"Kind of short, ruddy complexion?" Angel asked.

"Short?" Wesley said in obvious surprise, which at least suggested to Paige that Barney had been telling them the truth about his own involvement. "No, on the contrary, quite enormous, and powerful. More of a yellow-green... and it seems lately to be secreting some sort of viscous, yellow fluid."

"Like that?" Angel asked, indicating a blob of some kind of yellow substance on Wesley's jacket, another blob landing alongside it just as the three looked up to see a large creature clinging to the apartment ceiling, dressed in some kind of blue outfit underneath a brown robe, with brownish-pinkish skin and a series of ridges around its face that put Paige slightly in mind of a dinosaur.

As the creature registered their awareness of its presence, it leapt down to the floor, throwing Wesley across the room and kicking Paige off to the side, leaving Angel to charge forward to engage it in combat before it could turn around to focus on him. Paige thought she could see some kind of yellow-greenish hole in the middle of its forehead as it struggled with Angel, each opponent clasping the other's shoulders as they momentarily struggled for dominance before Angel managed to break its grip, striking it with a rapid series of punches before it managed to kick him to the ground. Taking advantage of its momentary distraction, Wesley- still on the ground where the creature had thrown him- fired a crossbow bolt at the creature, prompting a scream of pain from the monster before it turned to jump out of the window into the darkened street, leaving the three hunters to look after it as it fled.

"That was what you're after, huh?" Paige asked.

"Unquestionably," Wesley confirmed.

"Well," Angel said, looking thoughtfully at the self-proclaimed 'rogue demon hunter', "since your case wandered into our city... care to help us put it down?"

"I don't normally work with others..." Wesley said, a haughty expression on his face as he looked at them before his attempt to straighten up was ruined by a wince of pain, prompting him to look at them with a slight smile. "But, considering your obviously superior local knowledge... I suppose that working with you in this instance would only be practical."

"Great," Angel said, nodding at Wesley with a smile. "Let's get back to the office; we can go over what you've got so far on that thing and work out what its next move should be from there."

Paige wasn't entirely sure how she felt about this turn of events; this guy might have been hunting the demon they'd just found, but that stuff he'd told them about something taking the physical source of individuals' powers wasn't exactly reassuring, even without the other issue of her own lack of knowledge about where this guy came from...

Still, Angel seemed to be willing to at least try to trust him- Paige was guessing he had some experience with that 'Geoffrey' guy he was asking Wesley about earlier-, so Paige supposed she'd do the same for the moment; the guy _had_ just helped them drive that demon away when it had been in a position to kill Angel, after all...


	36. Tracking the Kungai

As he staggered into the office- he couldn't move his legs as much as he liked, and his arms hurt if he moved them too much as well, but at least he was mobile and only needed one crutch-, Doyle was briefly anxious at the sight of an empty room, but then he noticed a brief note on the desk and picked it up.

"'Checking up a lead'," he said, reading the note with a brief shrug before he sighed in frustration. "So much for that..."

He thought about calling Piper or Phoebe for information now that he was here, but quickly decided against it; with the Halliwells and Angel Investigations starting to develop their own particular 'niches' when it came to supernatural investigations, Angel and Paige didn't always 'check in' to alert Paige's sisters as to what they were up to, and as much as he was touched by Piper's decision to use his name for her son's middle names, he didn't feel like he was quite close enough to drop in on them in his current condition.

With no other options available, Doyle decided to head downstairs to wait for his friends; it might be possible for him to just wait in the office, but considering that the door had been locked before he got here, it wasn't like they had been expecting to deal with any clients for the moment- they weren't exactly big enough as an agency to take responsibility for multiple clients at the same time-, and even if he had felt comfortable doing something like that, his current state of injury didn't exactly present a positive impression to possible clients. Walking down the stairs to find a more comfortable place to wait, the half-demon walked into Angel's apartment, only to find himself looking at a slightly ruddy-faced demon with short horns and a high forehead, looking surprisingly casual as he sat in the vampire's base.

"What the-?" he said, looking in confusion at the new resident.

"Oh, you one of the other guys here?" the demon said, looking at him with a slight smile, his manner so casual that Doyle almost immediately ruled out the possibility of his presence here being malicious; he was too friendly for someone who thought they shouldn't be here, no matter what he was capable of.

"Uh... yeah," Doyle asked, looking uncertainly at the other demon. "So... you are?"

"Oh, I'm Barney," the new arrival said, smiling politely at him. "I came here for some help, and your... boss?"

"If that's Angel you're talking about, then yeah, he's my boss," Doyle nodded. "Tackling your case, I guess?"

"More like finding out what's trying to kill me, but yeah," Barney replied, looking him over with a thoughtful stare once again. "So... what happened to you?"

"Just had a bad encounter with a bunch of psychos who didn't like what we were trying to do," Doyle said, shrugging dismissively at the question; he didn't feel like sharing the specifics with someone he'd only just met. "Hazard of the job; you know how it us."

"I don't, but I'll take your word for it," Barney said, smiling briefly at Doyle as the Irish man slowly walked over to the nearest chair and sat down, leaving his crutch against the side of the chair as he settled into position.

Stuck for alternatives- even after spending the last few months with Angel, talking with other demons was always an awkward experience for him, and he wasn't in good enough shape to try and change that now-, Doyle picked up a pad of paper and began to idly sketch the object he'd seen in his vision; it might take a while to put it all together, but maybe if he could figure out what he was seeing in that vision he'd be able to help his friends find whatever they were looking for here...

* * *

  
"So, this is your office?" Wesley asked, looking at the room with a thoughtful expression as he took it in, evidently trying to find the right way to say what he really thought of it. "It's..."

"Basic?" Paige said, shrugging at the ex-Watcher's assessment. "We tend to keep most of the stuff related to our... speciality... downstairs; can't have our more conventional clients freaking out at the occult stuff, after all."

"Quite," Wesley said, nodding in understanding with a slight smile. "And... what inspired you to start this kind of career in the first place?"

"Vampires killed my family," Angel replied simply, going with the honest answer that didn't reveal his true nature.

"And I'm a witch," Paige said; if Wesley had once belonged to a demon-hunting organisation, they didn't want to give him any reason to realise who Angel was before he'd had a chance to see that Angel wasn't the same person as Angelus. "Angel gave me some help after my half-sisters told me about my powers, gave me a few pointers on how to use them properly and how to deal with some of things I ended up facing, and, after a few... incidents..., we decided that opening this agency was the best way for us to get a public reason for helping people."

"Oh," Wesley said, nodding in understanding. "So... it's just you two?"

"Well, my sisters help sometimes, and we have a seer whose visions alert us to who we need to help, but..." Paige began, before she heard a knocking from the door leading to Angel's apartment, as though someone was trying to climb the stairs. For a moment the three of them shifted into a combat stance- although Paige tried not to chuckle at the sight of Wesley wincing as he did so; evidently those pants weren't exactly comfortable-, but then the source of the knocking opened the door and revealed itself, prompting Angel and Paige to relax.

"Doyle?" Angel said, looking at the Irish seer in surprise as his friend stood at the top of the stairs leading down to his flat, swaying slightly on his crutches. "What are you doing here?"

"Had a vision," Doyle said, wincing as he walked through the door, Angel hurrying over to help him into the nearest chair. "I lost my phone during the crap with the Beacon, didn't have any of your numbers available and couldn't remember 'em, and figured that coming here would be the best way to get anywhere."

"You had a vision?" Angel asked, looking curiously at his friend as Doyle settled back into his chair, assuming a relatively comfortable position. "What was it?"

"Uh... that's where it becomes a bit trickier," Doyle said, before his gaze shifted to look at Wesley, who was studying him curiously. "And who's this guy?"

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, rogue demon hunter," Wesley replied, nodding firmly at Doyle. "And you are?"

"Doyle, resident seer; I help these guys gather info," the other man replied- he'd obviously mentioned the visions in Wesley's presence already, so acknowledging them only made sense-, nodding briefly at the ex-Watcher in acknowledgement of his introduction. "Working with us on this one?"

"A lone wolf, such as myself, never works with anyone," Wesley replied, drawing himself up as though trying to appear more imposing. "I'm merely allowing Angel to assist me."

"Right..." Doyle said, his tone making his scepticism of that assessment obvious.

"Look," Angel said, holding up his hands and stepping between the two men before the potential argument could go any further, "I've got my research books downstairs; let's just... see what we can find about that thing and work out our next move from there, OK?"

"Oh, by the way," Paige asked, looking over at her friend, "is Barney-?"

"The guy's still down there," Doyle replied, nodding at her as he got back to his feet, grabbing his crutches. "Chatted a bit earlier, but I heard movement an' wanted to be sure you were OK."

"Are you?" Wesley asked, looking uncertainly at Doyle. "You seem to be... well, you've obviously-"

"Price you pay for turning off an anti-human weapon created by the demonic Nazi party while you're on it," Doyle said, as he began to follow Angel down the stairs, Wesley close behind him while Paige brought up the rear, allowing her to ensure that one of them was always keeping an eye on Wesley; they could only trust their new acquaintance so far, given his past and Angel's own non-human nature.

"Hey," Barney's voice said, the other demon walking up the stairs, looking curiously around the upper room. "You got any idea where the- _you_?!" he said, staring at Wesley in shock before he turned to look at Angel. "Hold on; you _brought_ him here? That's the guy who's after me!"

"Actually, we've been talking with him, and there's... been a misunderstanding," Angel said, looking apologetically at their client. "Apparently, there's this thing- we're not sure what it is, but we're going to look that up- that's been hunting anything with particularly unique powers or abilities."

"Yeah," Paige added, patting Wesley casually on the shoulder. "Wesley here was tracking the thing in question, and since it was after you- and is apparently a lot better at hiding than you are, not that I'm meaning any offence-, you just thought he was after you instead."

"Oh," Barney said, looking uncertainly at them for a moment before deciding to look at Angel. "So what you're telling me is that all this time your friend wasn't hunting _me_ , he was hunting something else that was hunting me?"

"He's... well, that's pretty much it, yeah," Angel said, deciding not to mention that Wesley was just a casual acquaintance at best; getting into that kind of fine detail wasn't really necessary right now, and would only make things more complicated.

"And that other thing wanted to steal my ability?" Barney asked, looking at the vampire curiously.

"Yeah, come to that, why would a demon steal the powers of other demons?" Paige asked. "I mean, warlocks going after witches made sense, but surely the demons can't just take powers like that; I'd think Cole would have mentioned if something like that was possible..."

"OK," Angel said, looking firmly around at his temporarily-expanded team. "Wesley and I will see what we can find out about that thing that attacked us; Doyle, you and Paige see if you can figure out what you saw in that vision."

"Vision?" Barney repeated, looking at Doyle curiously as Angel and Wesley headed downstairs to Angel's apartment.

"Yeah, I get visions; so what?" Doyle said, glaring briefly at the demon as he rubbed at his head. "Right now, all it gets me is more pain on top of the agony in the rest of my body, and that's _before_ you take the fact that I don't know what I'm lookin' at right now into account..."

"If this is anything close to accurate, I'm not surprised," Paige said, picking up the paper that Doyle had been using to make a sketch and studying it. "I mean, I've heard of abstract art, but what is this even meant to be?"

"If I knew that-" Doyle began, before Wesley let out a sudden exclamation, the Watcher hurrying back up the stairs with a smile.

"Got it!" he said, looking at the others as he held open a book that he'd been studying. "It's a Kungai."

"A what?" Paige asked, looking at the Englishman in confusion. "How'd you find that so quickly?"

"I tracked it through an Asiantown district earlier; checking something native to that region seemed like a logical place to start my search," Wesley clarified, before he placed the book on the desk so that he could show the picture to the rest of them. "In any case, according to this, the Kungai are a powerful race of demons, possessing a Tak horn, capable of consuming its opponents' life force-"

"Hold on; a horn?" Paige said, looking at Wesley in surprise. "I don't recall that thing having a horn..."

"Maybe it retracts the horn when it's not ready to use it or something; can you just find it before it gets me?" Barney asked, looking at the three 'detectives' and the demon hunter in anxious desperation. "I've heard about these guys, and they _really_ don't mess around..."

"We'll get it," Angel said, nodding at Barney before he looked at Wesley. "You said that you tracked it through Asiantown; could you use that to work out where it might go if it needed to recover?"

"You don't know the locations yourself?" Wesley said, looking at Angel in surprise. "I thought you were-"

"We generally tackle more... mystical demons," Angel clarified, looking briefly awkward at having to admit this particular shortcoming. "We've been branching out, but since our more usual enemies don't tend to spend much time on Earth- Paige was hunting demons with her family before we started dating, and I was mostly under the radar before then-, we're not as used to tracking them down yet; any insight you've got to offer in searching for this thing would be appreciated."

He might not know much about the circumstances that had led Wesley to leave the Council after his Slayer's death, but the fact that Wesley had managed to track this thing as far as Barney had implied was definitely a point in his favour.

Besides, as much as he wanted to help their client, they did have a vision to consult on as well, and if they wanted to establish themselves as a business without relying exclusively on Piper and Phoebe for additional back-up, they were going to have to make a start.

"Paige, Doyle, stay here to keep an eye on Barney and see what you can work out about the vision," he said, nodding briefly at his girlfriend and his friend. "Wes, you're with me; we're going to find that thing and stop it."

"Understood," Wesley said, turning around to follow Angel, only to pause with a slight wince that Angel _definitely_ didn't want to consider the cause of...

The guy might be a useful potential source of demon-related information, but he _really_ needed to change his wardrobe if he was going to get anywhere stealthily.

* * *

  
" _Damnit_!" Paige said, throwing her pencil down as she stared at the latest scrawled attempt to duplicate what Doyle had seen in his vision. "Why can't these Powers that Be just send us the _message_?"

"That's kinda what they did-" Doyle began, the Irish demon currently lying on the sofa in Angel's flat so that he could be reasonably comfortable without putting too much strain on his still-damaged limbs.

"I mean a _relevant_ message!" Paige said, glaring over at Doyle as she angrily tore her latest drawing off the pad and hurled it into the nearest bin. "OK, I get that your visions come from a 'higher source' that may just have trouble relating things on a level _we'd_ understand, but would it be asking too much for them to give us a goddamn _address_?"

"Higher source?" Barney repeated, looking at Doyle in confusion. "What does that mean?"

"If you're asking for a list of the differences between the different types of seers out there, you're askin' the wrong guy; all I know is that I get blindin' headaches whenever I see anythin' this way, which as I said doesn't help the rest," Doyle said, wincing as he indicated the rest of his body.

"And you see... what?" Barney asked.

"People in trouble, places where trouble will be, things that will cause trouble if we don't destroy them or contain them... you get the drill," Doyle said as he lay back on the chair. "Sucks, but someone's gotta have 'em for Angel, I guess."

"Yeah..." Barney said, nodding as he looked at Doyle, a slightly thoughtful gleam in his eye that vanished before Paige could really think about it.

* * *

  
Walking through the demon spa, Angel tried to resist his natural urge to 'freak out' in this kind of situation; with San Francisco a veritable hub for demonic mystics, he hadn't encountered many physical demons since he'd first come here with Whistler, but now that he was in this place he was constantly resisting the vampiric urge to 'panic' and lash out before the stronger predators attacked him. Having Wesley alongside him- the man had taken a brief detour to change into a more practical and manoeuvrable white suit rather than his earlier black leather- was helping him maintain his calm by reminding him that he couldn't afford to vamp out and waste time explaining his situation to Wesley, but after so long dealing with creatures where it would be acceptable to give in to his natural urges and kill them, it wasn't easy to turn that off...

Still, at least searching this place hadn't been that difficult. A few bills slipped into the hand of the owner had soothed any initial objections he might have had to Angel and Wesley's investigation interrupting his clients, and from there they'd quickly been directed to the relevant cubicle containing the Kungai they were looking for with minimal hassle; the spa itself was relatively straightforward inside, if you ignored the fact that the clients were demons.

It was only when Angel had walked into the room, Wesley behind him, and found himself looking at the Kungai lying on a table, surrouned by various bottles, with an old woman apparently mopping its brow as it gasped for breath, that he realised just how complicated this situation was; even before the woman had told him that the Kungai was dying, it was clear that the creature was far from healthy.

"What's up with this thing?" Angel said, almost wincing as he looked at the weakened demon lying on the table; the Kungai might not be the most pleasant of demons, but even if nothing deserved to die in such obviously drawn-out pain, that still left the question of what could do something like that in the first place. As he leaned over, the creature suddenly reached up to grab his arm, but even without the creature's weakness, the pleading tone in its voice surpassed Angel's ignorance of its language as it looked at him with rapidly-fading urgency.

"I'm... I'm sorry," Angel said, barely even registering how strange it was to feel embarrassed that he couldn't understand something that had been attacking him earlier. "I don't speak your language."

"I do," Wesley said, looking solemnly at the creature as he walked around the table to stand opposite Angel. "At least, I think I recognise the dialect."

"Great," Angel said, smiling briefly at the ex-Watcher, making another brief addition to the known list of Wesley's skills. "What's he saying?"

"It's... odd," Wesley said, looking uncertainly at the Kungai. "I didn't think we'd injured him that badly..."

"It wasn't the arrow," Angel said, indicating the creature's head, where a twisted protrusion of flesh and bone was all that remained of where the thing's horn should have been; they'd been so caught up in the heat of battle earlier that they hadn't registered its absence. "Look; his Tak horn's been broken off."

As the Kungai weakly whispered, the occasional klick thrown in as it spoke, Wesley leaned over to listen to the creature's words.

"Not sick... not dying... No horn," he said, after listening to its words for a few moments. "I think he's trying to tell us that his horn was taken."

"We know that," Angel said, glaring at the Watcher, his opinion slightly lowering at the other man's ability to state the obvious. "The question is by whom?"

"The horn was taken," Wesley said, pausing to listen for a few more words before looking up at Angel. "He said his horn was taken for something, the Klu-(click)-ka... I'm not familiar with that word."

Shrugging apologetically, he turned back to the Kungai. "Yes. Fish. Fish will die. Not fish. More? He says more will die."

"Yeah, OK; _how_?" Angel asked, glaring between Wesley and the demon; just because something was going after demons didn't mean that it didn't have to stopped. "Who's doing this?"

"No good losing patience," Wesley said, looking reproachfully at Angel. "He's dying and I'm not exactly fluent."

With that brief warning, he turned his attention back to the conversation with the dying demon, listening in confusion to the next few words as the demon stared weakly up at him. "Bit the cherry? Slam the cherry? Oh, no, oh dear. Stop. Stop the demon? Red... heart... reader."

With that last, ominous-sounding statement, the Kungai sunk back on to the bed, now clearly dead, leaving Angel and Wesley to exchange glances as they processed what they'd just been told.

"He was trying to describe his killer," Wesley said, looking up at Angel with a solemn expression that gave the vampire additional hope; regardless of his background, at least Wesley seemed to recognise the potential severity of this situation despite the fact that the only known death so far was a demon. "Demon, heart, reader."

"Empath demon," Angel said, his eyes widening in horrified realisation. "Barney."

They were not only harbouring a sociopathic monster- an empath capable of doing this kind of damage to another being clearly had _serious_ issues-, but he'd left the thing alone with Doyle and Paige...


	37. Breaking Up the Auction

Even as he ran into the flat, a part of Angel knew that he was already too late to protect his friends from the killer they'd unintentionally invited into their midst, but he was still slightly disappointed at the sight of Paige lying unconscious on the floor of the flat, with no sign of Barney or Doyle.

"Paige!" he said, focusing on what he could do right now as he crouched down beside his lover, urgently checking her over for any sign of any serious injury; his relief when he found nothing more significant than a slight bump on her head was surpassed only by the moment when she moaned and opened her eyes.

"Ugh..." Paige groaned, blinking her way back to consciousness. "What... what happ- _DOYLE_!"

"He's not here," Angel said, looking urgently at his partner even as she forced herself out of his arms and stood up, looking around the apartment as though searching for their missing friend. "What happened here? Was it Barney?"

"How'd you-?" Paige began, looking at Angel in surprise.

"The Kungai's horn was taken by something that it described as a red-skinned heart-reader; it wasn't hard to make the connection after we heard that," Angel said, looking anxiously at her. "Are you all right?"

"Headache, but I think I'm fine apart from that; but... Doyle's not here?" Paige said, her eyes once again briefly scanning the apartment before her gaze settled back on Angel. "But... why would Barney snap like that?"

"We're working on it," Angel said.

"This is all my fault!" Wesley said, sitting down in a chair in frustration.

"We both made the choice to leave earlier; that's not your fault-" Angel said.

"I should have known," Wesley said. "All this time, I've been tracking the wrong demon; if anything happens to Mr Doyle because of me-!"

"Look, Doyle's not exactly incapable; will you stop just brooding about how things went wrong and-?" Paige began.

" _Idiot_!" Wesley said, hitting his forehead with the palm of his hand in exasperation. "I couldn't keep my Slayer stable, and now _this_?"

"Sorry; what's that about your Slayer?" Paige asked, looking at Wesley curiously, the shock of Doyle's abduction temporarily replaced by curiosity about this more immediate question. "I thought she... well, you said she died-?"

"Oh yes, she died, _after_ she decided to ignore everything the Council stood for!" Wesley said, glaring over at the witch in frustration. "I tried to help her focus on her duty, but the bloody upper-class lifestyle she'd enjoyed for years was more _important_ to her than protecting the innocent, and then she went and blamed _me_ when her mother was killed by a demon sacrifice while she was out with her friends, all because she couldn't take the fact that she _wasn't_ entitled to everything at once!"

"Uh... right..." Angel said, a glance at Paige all he needed to confirm that she was equally stuck for how to respond to Wesley's current rant of self-loathing.

"I mean, considering how it ended, I'm surprised they didn't just cut my head off; what fool reaches a point where he has to _kill_ his Slayer?" Wesley asked, rolling his eyes in frustration as he sat down in a nearby chair. "I catered to her arrogant belief in her own superiority because it was easier to do that than to try and convince her that being chosen was nothing but chance, and then I didn't bother to put my foot down when she wanted to do something else on the night of a crucial sacrifice and she ended up blaming _me_ for everything because I didn't guess what would happen; she was helping _demons_ attack _us_ before the Council stopped her! I'm a fool! A useless, great, snivelling-!"

"Look, you can berate yourself about past failures later; right now, we need to focus on working out where Doyle actually _is_ ," Angel said, glaring at Wesley for a moment- it was clear that Wesley had some issues about what had happened to his Slayer, and it would probably be a good idea to have Phoebe talk to him at some point given her own psychology background, but this was far from the time to explore those issues in depth with Doyle's life on the line- before satisfied that the other man would stay quiet as he turned his attention back to Paige. "Can you sense him?"

"I've been trying, but no luck," Paige said, shaking her head in frustration after a momentary pause to double-check. "I don't know if Barney knows what I can do or if whoever took him just wanted to shield that place from magic anyway, but I can't sense him."

"Great..." Angel said, sighing in frustration before his eyes fell on a piece of paper lying on the ground. Picking it up out of curiosity and a lack of alternative courses of action, he unfolded the small ball of paper, and found himself looking at a strangely familiar image...

"What's this?" he asked, showing the drawing to Paige.

"That?" Paige said, looking at the object in question with a brief shrug. "Just something Doyle saw in his vision; he'd been trying to sketch it in case he could get a better idea of what it was, but we were still stuck on just figuring out if it was part of something or what..."

"I know this," Angel said, looking at Paige with a slight smile.

"You do?" Paige said, new hope on her face at this news.

"It's a sculpture by Van Gieson, Maiden with Urn," Angel explained, turning to show it to Wesley; turned on its side, it looked more like a figure slouching rather than someone holding anything, but it was possible to see what the sculptor had intended. "Doyle saw this in a vision, and if Barney's been hunting demons with particular talents, it doesn't exactly seem impossible that this latest vision was about that; if we can work out where this sculpture is right now, we might be able to figure out where Barney took him."

"We?" Wesley repeated in surprise. "You mean you-?"

"You helped me work out that Barney was behind this, and you helped me track that Kungai in the first place; just because you screwed up once doesn't make you a failure," Angel said, looking firmly at the Watcher to make sure that the other man understood and accepted what he was saying; he didn't know the precise details of the situation Wesley described, but nothing he'd heard suggested that it was Wesley's fault. "What happened to your Slayer sucked, but we have a possible clue, and you still need to figure out what that Kungai was talking about."

"You mean regarding the Klu(click)ka?" Wesley asked,

"Exactly," Angel said, nodding firmly at the Watcher. "You're the only one here with a hope of translating that, so get translating."

He wasn't comfortable putting this much faith in a stranger when a friend's life was on the line, but he didn't have much choice; if Paige couldn't find Doyle, Leo _definitely_ wouldn't be able to, and anything capable of stopping Paige finding someone would probably also block scrying efforts, so their best bet right now was research.

* * *

  
Taking in his surroundings, Doyle wondered what higher power he'd insulted to deserve this kind of treatment; he could get that the visions were part of his penance for failing to save his fellow Brachens from the Scourge all those years ago, but how did that translate into him deserving to be abducted for some screwy auction where people were only leaving him alive because his eyes were worth more intact?

God, what _was_ it with people and the eyes of seers? It was the brain that processed the damn visions anyway; he wasn't sure if his eyes ever actually processed anything or if the visions just went straight to his mind...

The really annoying bit was that there was nothing he could do about it; they knew that he had visions already, so it wasn't like they'd decide to let him go if he tried to convince them that his visions weren't in his eyes.

Besides, considering that he was talking about a bunch of people twisted enough to find it funny to buy a Tak horn and talk about stabbing their wives with it, this wasn't exactly the kind of crowd that inspired hope that they'd be sympathetic if you tried to reason with them.

He thought he'd seen how low the demon world could get, and then he'd seen just what Barney was capable of; how screwed-up did an empath demon have to get to actually _enjoy_ feeling others' pain while beating them up?

All that crap Barney had sprouted, bringing up everything from his reasons for keeping his demon side secret and his fears about his feelings for Phoebe... why the hell would anybody _want_ to feel that on top of inflicting physical pain (He wasn't sure if being an empath would mean that Barney would feel physical and emotional pain, but surely the emotional would be bad enough)?

Seriously, if only he could do _something_ to stop the bidding that was going on around him; he was never comfortable bragging- and in any case pushing the price up wasn't exactly how he wanted to buy time, even if he'd had faith that it would work-, blinding himself wasn't an option as that might not stop the visions, and he was still too weak to be sure that even his demon form's strength would be enough to get him out of his current bonds, so what was left...?

As the bidding offers rose around him- under other circumstances it might have been weirdly flattering to learn that he had a 'gift' worth over ten thousand dollars, but right now it was just frustrating-, Doyle groaned and slumped back down on the table where he was currently strapped; apparently, all he could do was hang around and hope that his friends found him in time.

He might like being the guy who saved people, but he was definitely starting to see why others didn't like it when they had to be saved; it was so damn annoying being totally subject to the whims and preferences of other people to get anywhere, even if those whims were the only thing keeping him alive right now...

 _God_ , he wished that Angel would get here soon.

* * *

  
"Van Gieson's Maiden with Urn," Angel said, looking at the picture on the computer screen; it was better-illuminated than the drawing, but it was still clearly the same thing. "It was sold to the Ramsey Hotel chain in '82; if we can identify which hotel it's in, we can use that to find Doyle."

"On it," Paige said, turning on her laptop and starting to run another search, glancing over at where Wesley was studying another book. "Anything on your end?"

"I keep running up against a translation for Klu(click)kla, which translates as Caller Sale..." Wesley said, his tone speculative as he thoughtfully studied the boom his hands. "Caller... Caller Sale... Yes, of course! I know what Klu(click)ka is."

"What?" Angel asked, as he and Paige looked sharply at the ex-Watcher.

"Auction," Wesley replied.

"Doyle's at an auction?" Paige said, looking at Wesley in surprise as she quickly ran over everything they'd learned about the situation so far. "They're going to _sell_ Doyle?"

"No," Angel said, a grim thought occurring to him as he processed this new information. "If what they did to the Kungai's any indication, they're going to see the most relevant bit of him..."

"His eyes?" Paige said, her own widening in horror at that idea. "They're going to cut out Doyle's _eyes_ to _sell_ them?"

"Not if we can help it," Angel said, standing up and looking firmly at Paige. "Can you get us there?"

"Get us there?" Wesley repeated in confusion, even as he followed the vampire's example. "How-?"

"Just hold on," Paige said; not even thinking about the possible consequences of what she was doing- thoughts of giving away her secret would be given thought when they had saved Doyle's life- as she grabbed Wesley's shoulder and took hold of Angel's hand, concentrating for a few moments on the address that Angel's research had discovered...

* * *

  
After the wildest and most uncomfortable orb she'd ever experienced- it felt like she'd been running against a violent storm for a few moments, even as she'd managed to keep her mind focused on the target destination-, Paige emerged in a large area that was clearly the lobby of the hotel- thankfully empty; it was probably too late for anybody to be bothered checking in at this time-, releasing her grip on Angel and Wesley's shoulders as she took in her surroundings.

"What the-?" Wesley began, before he looked at Paige in sudden inspiration. "A _Whitelighter_?"

"Half; my father was a Whitelighter, so I inherited a few extra traits even if my mother was human," Paige clarified, smiling briefly at Wesley in a hopefully reassuring manner before looking at Angel as he studied a display board on the wall of the hotel. "Any luck?"

"There's a private function taking place in the main ballroom tonight, scheduled to end in a few minutes; it's the most likely location of the auction," Angel said, turning to look at the other two. "Just so we're clear, we go in, find Doyle, and get him out; how's that sound?"

"Doable," Paige said, nodding grimly at her boyfriend despite the slight apprehension in her stance; she'd never tried orbing three people with her before, but if it was her friends' lives on the line, she'd give it her best shot.

"I'm in," Wesley said firmly.

"Right," Angel said, his expression firm as he looked at his friends (He'd consider what it meant that he was already thinking of Wesley as such later; the man might be unfamiliar, but he'd come through for them so far). "Focus on just knocking out anyone we find in there unless we have to; if these people are human, we don't want the attention of a potential murder charge on top of everything else."

After exchanging further nods of confirmation, Angel led Paige and Wesley along the corridor until they reached the room where the even that was almost certainly the auction was taking place, Angel kicking the door down before any of the nearby hotel staff could object.

As they took in the sight of Doyle lying on a table on a stage at the head of the room, with a group of people sitting in chairs before him, Angel and Paige didn't even need to speak to decide on their strategy; Angel charged into the thick of the group, the auction attendees already getting to their feet as he hit them head-on, Angel quickly taking out the mostly-human bidders with a combination of his vampiric strength and naturally-acquired training while Paige ran around the edges and up to the stage to rescue Doyle. She was briefly confronted by Barney, the previously seemingly-passive empathy glaring at her as he brandished a strange claw-like device that Angel was prepared to bet would have been used to take Doyle's eyes out once business was concluded, but before Paige even had to dodge the first punch a hole suddenly appeared in the side of Barney's head, the demon falling to the ground almost instantaneously.

Glancing back, Angel was surprised to see Wesley pointing a gun at the stage- he hadn't noticed the ex-Watcher using that weapon earlier, but it was possible that he'd just been focused more on looking for more traditional anti-demon weapons and had therefore missed the gun-, but the feel of someone hitting him in the back with a chair drew his attention back to the fight at hand as he automatically kicked out at his would-be attacker. Even with their limited combat experience- evidently this auction was attended mainly by the junior representatives rather than anyone with actual power; someone with the connections to use Doyle's eyes should have been capable of more than this-, the auction guests might have been able to overwhelm Angel with sheer weight of numbers eventually, but with Paige already working on freeing Doyle, Angel decided to avoid wasting his time any further.

"Wes; the stage!" he yelled over at the ex-Watcher before he launched into a rapid spinning kick that knocked down most of the auction guests in his immediate vicinity. Taking advantage of the space this created, Angel ran for the stage where Paige and Doyle were located, briefly registering Wesley running for the same location before they both reached their destination (Angel was glad he'd made a note to limit his speed to human-level fast; it was sometimes hard not to go all-out, but he'd spent enough time with the Halliwells to know to adjust it down). As he joined his friends, Angel noted Doyle's condition with a relieved smile- he'd taken a few knocks, but otherwise he seemed to be as fine as he'd been before he was captured- before Paige placed a hand on Doyle and Wesley's shoulders, leaving Angel to place his hands on her shoulders and smile at her as they vanished into the white light of orbing.

* * *

  
"Nothing?" Angel asked, looking curiously at Paige.

"Not so much as a peep," Paige confirmed, grinning back at Angel as she closed the last news web site. "Could be anything from the hotel wanting to cover up a breach in their security or the auction-holders not wanting to let their potential customers know how badly they screwed up, but the end result is the same; nobody's making a big deal about what we did in any newspapers."

"But you've got Phoebe and Darryl keepin' an eye on it, right?" Doyle asked, looking anxiously over at his friend. "I mean, I get why nothin's up yet, but we can't be _sure_..."

"Who?" Wesley asked.

"My sister and a friend of ours," Paige clarified. "Phoebe's an advice columnist for the _Bay Mirror_ and Darryl's a lieutenant in the police; they help us find some of our cases."

"Ah," Wesley said, nodding in understanding. "Good contacts to have."

"Talking of good contacts," Angel said, looking curiously at Wesley, "with this case over, where are you going?"

"Back on the road," Wesley said firmly. "Us rogue demon hunters rarely know where we're going, but wherever evil lurks, wherever the forces of darkness threaten humanity, I'll be there."

"Sure you wouldn't rather just hang around here?" Doyle asked.

"Pardon?" Wesley said, looking at Doyle in surprise.

"We'd never have managed to rescue Doyle in time if you hadn't understood what that Kungai was telling us, and you showed that you know what you're doing in some areas even if... well, to be polite about it, your hand-to-hand could use some work," Angel said, looking briefly apologetic at his bluntness towards the Watcher before he focused on the central topic at hand. "What matters is, we could use someone with your background, and you... well, from what you told us, you sound like you could use a few friends."

"Gotta admit, I agree with my boyfriend here, Wes; you've got the knowledge, and we've got an agency that lets you use that knowledge, so why not pool our resources and use them both?" Paige said, smiling encouragingly at her new friend. "We're an odd group, but we get the job done, and we'd probably get it done more efficiently with you to give us some research-related help... if you'd like to stick around?"

Looking at the three people standing around him, casual yet hopeful expressions on their faces as they studied him, Wesley smiled.

"Why not?" he said at last, even as he tried to sound more casual about it than he obviously felt (Paige didn't need Phoebe's degree to guess that Wesley had been doubting his worth ever since he was fired from the Council; being asked to stay by people who knew what he'd done would almost certainly mean a lot to him). "It... might be interesting."

"Cool," Paige said, smiling at him. "Welcome to Angel Investigations, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

It might be a somewhat impulsive hire, but after the way that Wesley had proven himself in this case, Angel felt that the guy could use a sign that someone had confidence in him, given how things had apparently ended in his tenure at the Watcher's Council.

Besides, this agency was primarily based on the idea of redemption being possible; if he was open to that possibility for himself, he had to be willing to give others the chance to make up for their mistakes. Wesley might have apparently failed as a Watcher to a Slayer, but he'd helped them save their friend and he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, even if he was a bit lost at the moment- Angel barely knew the guy and he was already doubtful that the 'rogue demon hunter' thing was for him-; he could be a capable ally if given the chance, and Angel was going to give him that chance.

He just hoped that it wouldn't take too long to find the right time to reveal that he and Doyle weren't exactly human...


	38. Why Not to Hook Up

"You hired a new guy for the agency?" Piper said, looking at Paige incredulously as the three sisters sat in P3; it had been a while since they'd all been able to spare the time to catch up, with Phoebe's column and business at the club taking up most of their, but Paige had managed to arrange this meeting to discuss recent events at the agency while Angel and Wesley were investigating Doyle's latest vision and Doyle continued to recuperate at his apartment.

"What's the problem?" Paige asked, shrugging as she looked at her sisters. "He's aware of the supernatural, he brings skills and experience that we don't have already to the table, and he's willing to help out; even if he didn't help us rescue Doyle, that other stuff's got to count in his favour, right?"

"And the fact that he got fired from an organisation that pays him to fight evil because he screwed up means... what to you?" Phoebe asked, looking sceptically at her sister.

"Look, Wesley admitted that he made a mess of his time at the Watcher's Council, but it sounded like that was as much because of his Slayer being a bitch as it was because he screwed up himself; we're just looking for him to serve as our research expert rather than just have him be a mentor or teacher or something like that, so he's not going ot have to make any 'command decisions' at this point," Paige explained, glaring slightly at Phoebe; she respected her sisters' experience in fighting demons, but that didn't mean that she would just blindly accept their judgement, particularly when Paige was the one who was actually involved in the agency. "He's the research guy, but he's comfortable not being a leader when working in a group after the mess he made of things with his Slayer; we're giving him a chance to earn his confidence back without putting him in a position of authority where he might have to make judgement calls he's uncertain about making."

"And the fact that he doesn't know that Angel isn't human yet is because...?" Piper asked, looking pointedly at her sister.

"Because we want him to see Angel as a person before we reveal that he's a vampire," Paige clarified, shrugging slightly at her sister's question; they might have had some bad experiences with Angel and Cole keeping their heritages secret in the past, but after she'd kept quiet about Doyle for this long Paige felt justified in providing this explanation for keeping Wesley ignorant of the truth about Angel for the moment. "That's Angel for you; he's come a long way, but he wants to be sure anyone working with him will judge him for _him_ , rather than assume that he's nothing but another vampire."

"Well… no offence intended to your boyfriend, but considering how dumb some of them are, that makes sense," Piper said, smiling slightly at Paige. "I mean, looking back at some of the minions Angelus sent after us, I wonder if he ever seriously thought that any of those vampires could kill us; half the time they were practically walking into our stakes, and that's _before_ I showed up..."

It was an exaggeration of the scale of the vampire-related threats they'd faced when Angelus had been active- Paige could only think of a few occasions when they'd fought vampires other than Angelus, Spike or Drusilla, discounting those occasions where they'd fought large groups-, but Paige appreciated the sentiment; the average vampire just tended to dive in and look for food, with only a few really giving the impression that they were taking their time and hunting for less obvious prey while they built up their own resources.

For a moment, the three sisters sat in contemplative silence, sipping at their drinks as they reflected on this news out of a lack of anything else to say on the topic at the moment, until Phoebe stood up.

"Sorry to cut this short, but I've got to dash; I promised to help a few old friends make up the numbers," she said, smiling over at her sisters.

"Make up the numbers?" Piper repeated inquiringly.

"They've been trying to get a group date organised with some people and they couldn't find a fourth girl for it, so they got in touch with me and I figured, why the hell not?" Phoebe clarified, smiling at her sister. "I've got to get back in the game sometime, so when you get this kind of opportunity, be stupid not to take it, right?"

"In other words, you might want this," Paige said, pulling out some keys and tossing them to Phoebe.

"What-?" Phoebe asked, looking at the keys in surprise.

"My keys to Angel's place," Paige explained with a slight smile. "If you want privacy, that's your best bet; I can call Angel and get him to go to the manor once he's done with the case, assuming my room's still available?"

"You know it is," Phoebe said, smiling reassuringly at Paige before looking curiously at her sister. "But why...?"

"Look, no offence, but if you're looking for what you imply you're looking for on this date, you're _not_ coming back to the manor with some guy," Piper said, looking firmly at Phoebe while answering the question for Paige. "You want to get back in the game, that's great, but I'm not exposing my son to that kind of activity just yet..."

"OK, no problem," Phoebe said, smiling in understanding at her sister. "Probably for the best, anyway; Serena made it pretty clear these guys wanted someone new and unseen for some reason..."

"Huh?" Paige asked, looking at her inquiringly. "Why'd you-?"

"It's Wilson Christopher," Phoebe explained. "I think I can put up with a little eccentricity when it's someone like that."

"Wils- hold on, isn't he that photographer?" Paige said, snapping her fingers in inspiration as the name's origins struck her, before she looked curiously at her sister. "And you're thinking he won't recognise-?"

"He works for a different magazine; he won't know me," Phoebe clarified, shrugging nonchalantly at her sister in the dismissive manner she always assumed when discussing her recent photoshoot before she turned around. "Well, excuse me; I've gotta bail."

With that said, Phoebe turned and hurried out of the club, leaving her sisters to look at each other with a slight shrug.

"She won't even date this guy at my club?" Piper said. "What does that say about the relationship?"

"That she doesn't want to put too much pressure on it too soon," Paige said. "And after the way things went with Cole and that Miles guy, I can't say I blame her for wanting to keep Wilson out of our lives at the moment."

"Point..." Piper said, sighing as she looked back at her younger sister. "I guess we can't exactly blame her; Phoebe's always been the most... varied romantic."

"Varied?" Paige asked, looking curiously at her sister.

"Well," Piper began, "I've been with Leo, on and off, since pretty much he started as our Whitelighter- I mean, even when we were broken up we weren't exactly _off_ , even if we were trying to kid ourselves otherwise-, and then Prue only had one or two serious relationships after she became a witch- everything else lasted for a few dates and that was it-, and you've been with Angel since we learned what he is and didn't date anyone else when he was Angelus, but Phoebe..."

"Bit more varied than that, huh?" Paige asked, smiling sympathetically at Piper as she remembered a few past instances where her old schoolfriends had been going on far more dates than her, even if they'd never rubbed her face in it…

"It's not that she's _easy_ or anything, she's just... willing to be more open early on than we are, I guess," Piper said, sighing as she looked at her drink for a moment, lost in thought, before she sighed and stood up. "Anyway, I'd better get home; Wyatt gets cranky if he doesn't see me before he nods off."

Paige nodded in understanding at Piper as her eldest sister walked off, leaving her to glance at her watch and wonder if she had time to get another drink before Angel arrived to pick her up after the vision situation had been resolved.

That was the problem with making a living fighting evil, really; it might be exciting, but it made it a real pain trying to schedule dates, even if the fact that they were _both_ fighting evil made it easy for Angel and Paige to apologise for it.

Seriously, Paige didn't know how anyone in this life would cope with dating someone who wasn't aware of magic; it would be practically _impossible_ to give them a good explanation for why they had to dash off all the time.

Still, if Phoebe wanted normality, that was her call; she'd just do what she could to be a supportive sister and hope for the best.

* * *

  
"This just isn't right," Angel said, as he and Paige walked up to the apartment the following morning, a peaceful night having been cut short out after the four in the house realised that Phoebe wasn't home yet when they received a call from the _Bay Mirror_ asking for her location.

"Tell me about it; there's no _way_ Phoebe takes this long to get into work, no matter how good last night was," Paige confirmed- she might want normality, but this wasn't like Phoebe-, knocking impatiently on the door to Angel's apartment, giving anyone inside a moment to answer before Angel simply pulled out his keys and opened the door. "I left her two messages, and we can't exactly ignore the fact that the paper had tried to call her…"

"Phoebe?" Angel said, calling experimentally into the apartment, before walking through the empty hall to head for the bedroom. Opening the door, Paige was initially relieved to see Phoebe sitting there, but her eyes widened in shock at the sight of Phoebe's extended stomach, obviously in a very developed pregnancy that she definitely hadn't had even the slightest hint of the previous night, as she lay in bed, staring tearfully at the shocking anomaly.

"Oh God…" she said, walking over to sit down on the edge of the bed, reaching out to take Phoebe's hand.

"Paige?" Phoebe said, still staring at her belly with a tearful tremor in her voice.

"I'm here," Paige said, squeezing her sister's hand. "And so's Angel."

"I'm… I'm ready to wake up now," Phoebe said, staring at her stomach as though she was struggling not to scream. "I-I don't… seem to be waking up. Help me."

"We're going to," Angel said, looking solemnly at her as he sat down on the other side of the bed. "What do you remember?"

"Well… we went to the club," Phoebe said, swallowing slightly as she spoke. "And Wilson and I just sort of hid out on this couch, and we talked and talked, and then he drove me home- or here, anyway- and I asked him in…"

"And one thing led to another?" Angel asked, careful to keep his tone calm and non-judgemental.

"He was… really nice," Phoebe said, looking tearfully at her extended stomach before looking between her sister and her sister's boyfriend. "And we… it had been a while… but it was normal. He was normal and it was safe, and it… God, how can this be happening _again_?"

Looking up at Angel, Paige was relieved to see that he at least understood what Phoebe meant by the 'again' comment; Phoebe's pregnancy with the Source's child was an even more awkward subject than whatever Angel remembered of his time as Angleus, but clearly he recalled enough of this experience to know what she was talking about.

"It's… it's OK," Angel said, feeling the inadequacy of the statement even as he and Paige both knew that there was nothing more that could be said right now. "Have you talked to Wilson?"

"And what; asked him if he left something?" Phoebe asked, indicating her impossible stomach. "There's just… I mean, even if he has answers, he's not going to just _give_ them to me…"

"We'll work on that," Angel said, looking grimly at her before he looked up at Paige. "Come on; let's get looking."

"Could you just… give me a moment?" Phoebe asked, looking uncertainly at her stomach. "I just… I need…"

"Sure," Paige said, patting Phoebe awkwardly on the arm before she turned to leave the room, Angel getting her cue and departing ahead of her. "You're not alone."

"That's… kind of the problem right now," Phoebe said, looking awkwardly at her stomach before Paige closed the door, looking anxiously at Angel.

"OK," she said, looking grimly at her boyfriend, "whatever is going on here, I think we can agree _that_ isn't normal or encouraging?"

"To say the least," Angel said, pulling out his phone. "I'll call Darryl and see if he can help us track down this 'Wilson Christopher' guy; you get the others down here as soon as possible."

"Gotcha," Paige said, nodding at her boyfriend/boss even as she suddenly found herself hoping that Doyle wouldn't react too badly to this new development; not only did Phoebe still not know what he was, but now she had another demonic pregnancy to deal with…

"Look," she said, looking uncertainly at Angel, "I get that we can't be sure _what_ we're dealing with here yet- something tells me the list of things that do this isn't exactly short-, but have you… heard of something like that?"

"Demons using humans as mothers?" Angel said, nodding grimly at her. "Yeah, I have; procrea-parasitic demons are rare, but they're not that common, and it's not pleasant."

"By which I take it you mean that the human mothers don't always make it?" Paige asked, her mind flashing to the worst possible scenario in this situation; monsters tearing their way out of expectant mothers because they were literally too big to come out any other way and had the claws and fangs to do so…

"And the ones that do often wish they hadn't," Angel confirmed, his expression grim as he looked over at the room where Phoebe was currently lying.

Following his gaze, Paige clenched her fists, suddenly eager to find the person responsible so that she could unleash all of her fury against the bastard who'd done this to her sister.

She might not have been totally convinced at the practicality of Phoebe's interest in a normal relationship, but that didn't mean that she'd wanted _this_ to happen.


	39. Expecting

"Dear Lord," Wesley said, staring in shock at Phoebe's condition as he finally walked through the door of Angel's apartment, the Watcher the last one to arrive; Leo was staying at the manor to keep an eye on Wyatt. "I've heard of these procrea-parasitic pregnancies, but to actually _see_ one-"

"Yeah, it's a great miracle; can we focus on the facts of this mess right now?" Piper asked, looking sharply at the other man before she turned to look at her sister. "How are you feeling?"

"Scared, horrified, disgusted, take your pick," Phoebe said, glaring over at her sister. "Just… why the hell am I _always_ the one who gets stuck with this kind of crap? First I'm possessed by the house's evil, then I've got a demon who wants me as his bride after possessing my fiancé, and now I'm being used as breeding stock by… by some _thing_!"

"Uh… right," Doyle said, swallowing slightly before he looked over at Angel, who had just finished another phone call. "Anything?"

"Nothing," Angel said grimly. "Darryl's run every check he can think of, and I even tried calling in another favour or two of my own; all contact details for Wilson Christopher have become useless."

"So… what do we do now?" Paige asked, looking uncertainly at Phoebe.

"Uh… see what's inside her?" Piper suggested.

"Right," Angel said, nodding in agreement at Piper's suggestion. "Doyle, you and Phoebe need to get to the hospital for a pre-natal exam; Wesley see what you can find out about any kind of demon that uses this means to reproduce and how we can end the pregnancy without… well, without anything going wrong. Paige, Piper, you and Leo prepare for the worst; whatever's going on here, we have to be ready."

Nobody needed to ask what Angel meant by 'prepare for the worst'; if things went wrong, they would have to hope that injuries sustained giving birth to a demon would count as injuries inflicted by evil so that Leo or Paige could heal her, to say nothing of hope that whatever came out wouldn't be ready to fight too quickly.

"And you?" Paige asked, trying to focus on something about this mess that they could control.

"I'm going to find Daddy," Angel said grimly. "Who has the name of the club Phoebe was at last night?"

* * *

  
Sitting in the waiting room of the doctor's office, Doyle wondered what it said about his life that he kept on ending up in increasingly awkward situations. Not only did he have to worry about his visions, but then he found himself working with a bunch of witches and a vampire with a soul to actively protect people after he'd spent so long trying _not_ to get involved, and now he was stuck attending an ultrasound with the woman he was awkwardly falling for while she was pregnant with some horrific demon spawn?

God, what had he done to make the rest of the world hate him like this?

Sure, he'd managed to get the staff to bump Phoebe up the line by claiming that it was an urgent check-up, but that wasn't going to help them out for long, and that was assuming the rest of this pregnancy was going to take any kind of time; for all they knew she could be ready to pop this evening…

"Do you know what it is?" a woman sitting next to them asked, looking at Phoebe curiously. "Boy or girl?"

"Waitin' to be surprised," Doyle said, as Phoebe simply stared shakily back at the other woman; clearly the 'what' part of the question had inspired some apprehension.

"You're carrying low," the woman said, smiling as she reached over towards Phoebe's extended stomach. "I bet it's a-"

" _Don't_!" Phoebe said, practically jumping in her chair and holding up her hands in a movement that put Doyle in mind of Piper. "Don't touch me!"

"Mrs Walters?" the doctor said, his head emerging from the main room. "We're ready for you."

Doyle sighed in relief as the doctors came along to show them into the office, Phoebe lying down on the chair while he stood beside her out of a lack of anything else to do.

This might still be difficult, but at least they were getting on with the real reason they were here…

"You're… eight and a half months along?" the doctor asked, after spending a moment examining the middle Halliwell.

"Feels like only yesterday, doesn't it?" Doyle said, smiling awkwardly at Phoebe; they'd known that the pregnancy was accelerated, but to know that they were _that_ close to a potential birth…

"Well, I see you left a lot of blanks on your patient information form," the doctor said

"It would help to have the name of your previous doctor."

"We… don't really have one… here," Phoebe said, awkwardly voicing the first cover story that came to mind.

"Decided to move after the accident," Doyle said, indicating his remaining burns from his encounter with the Beacon with a brief wave of his hand; if he was stuck with these scars for the foreseeable future, he might as well use them. "Fresh start after a bad experience, you know…"

"Ah," the doctor said, nodding in understanding before he looked back at Phoebe. "So, how are you feeling?"

"How do you _think_ I feel?" Phoebe asked, glaring briefly at him. "I'm huge, everything hurts, and I…"

She trailed off, her gaze fixed on her stomach once again, leaving Doyle unable to do anything more than awkwardly pat her arm.

"That's all normal at this stage," the doctor said reassuringly. "And once your little one comes out, which will probably be in no time, you'll feel a lot better."

Doyle didn't need to look at Phoebe to know that what she'd just been told was far from comforting; they still didn't know what they were dealing with, after all.

 _He_ might have been born looking relatively human, but there wasn't exactly a guarantee that these kids would be the same; they couldn't even be sure if Wilson was the father or if he was just a surrogate donor for something else…

"All right, Mrs Walters," the doctor said, as he and the nurse helped Phoebe get into position on the room's examination bed, "why don't you just lie back and we'll see what's backing in the oven."

As the doctor began the ultrasound, Doyle could only squint uncertainly as they studied the screen; he was never sure how anyone was meant to even be able to tell where the baby _was_ with those things, never mind what gender it was…

"…someone's having twins," the doctor said, his words drawing Doyle's attention away from musings about ultrasound pictures.

" _Twins_?" Doyle and Phoebe repeated in shock.

"No, there's a third heartbeat," the doctor said, still looking at the screen.

"There's another one," the nurse added.

"Five… six…" the doctor continued, Doyle unable to do anything more than stare at Phoebe in sympathy as her panicked expression grew.

One kid had been enough to worry about, but multiples created several unpleasant possible explanations for this particular situation that he _really_ didn't want to consider.

* * *

  
Standing outside Sarina's apartment- a quick call to Piper had been enough to get the girl's address; apparently she was an old friend of Phoebe's, even if the two didn't see each other that much any more-, trying not to attach too much significance to the darkened hallway leading to the door, Angel crossed his fingers as he knocked on the door; he could probably call Paige for help if the need arose, but until he was sure he'd prefer to explore this situation by himself.

They might be partners in the agency and in life, but they each had to show that they could stand on their own if required; there was no sense in becoming excessively co-dependent, after all…

After a few moments had gone by without any sign that the door would be opened even as Angel's hearing detected someone inside, he decided to try a different approach.

"Sarina?" he asked.

"Just leave it outside," a voice said, its tone a resigned yet frustrated one that suggested that she was only talking to him out of necessity.

"Sarina, I'm a friend of Phoebe's," Angel said, hoping that the explanation would be enough; it wasn't like he'd met this woman before now, after all. "Can I come in?"

"OK," the voice said, her voice still resigned to an inconvenience she wanted to deal with because she had to.

Walking into the apartment, Angel was surprised to find it far darker than he would have expected to find in an apartment at this time of day. A few candles were the only source of illumination as he walked through it, illuminating some shelves filled with coloured glass and a large fire, a woman standing in front of the empty fire with her back to him as she lit another candle.

"Sarina?" he said, looking at the woman in confusion.

"The light hurts my eyes lately," Sarina said, everything about her continuing her impression that she was resigned to something terrible and wanted to be alone.

"I know the feeling," Angel said, the awkward comment the only thing he could comfortably say at this point; at least it had the advantage of being the truth.

"I thought you were the liquor store; I'm almost dry," Sarina said, lifting a bottle of wine in her hand and drinking directly from it, without even bothering to look for a glass. "I know what you're thinking; I shouldn't, right?"

Angel was about to ask what she meant by that, but as Sarina turned around, revealing a pregnancy as developed as Phoebe's, it all came together even before she confessed to her hope that it would hurt the baby.

"It's like it's not real," she continued, still staring at her stomach, "but it is, right? It's really happening?"

"It's real," Angel said, collecting himself as he looked at the clearly terrified woman. "It's happening to Phoebe, too."

"Oh God," Sarina said, looking down at herself in shock. "I can't reach Jason. He's gone."

"So's Wilson," Angel said, guessing that Jason was Sarina's date for the previous night.

"I didn't know this would happen," Sarina said, walking over to sit down on a couch on the other side of the room.

"But you knew something?" Angel asked, seizing on the unspoken implication of her last sentence.

"Yeah, I knew… I knew the guys- Jason and Nick, and then Wilson wanted to meet someone else, and I was reading the paper and thought of Phoebe…" Sarina said, sighing in frustration. "I don't know… I knew _something_ wasn't right. Their money…"

"What about their money?" Angel asked.

"It's stupid, but it kind of… smelled," Sarina said, her eyes closed as she reflected on the memory before she looked back at him. "I mean, _really_ smelled. And sometimes they seemed a bit jumpy, but… you know, in a town like this, you notice enough weird things happening that you eventually stop questioning it."

"Do you have someone you can call?" Angel asked, sitting down on a table in front of her.

"Call?" Sarina repeated.

"Family," Angel clarified.

"No, no one," Sarina said, shaking her head. "The guys seemed like they liked that. Wilson asked about Phoebe, and I told him that she didn't have anybody either."

"Bending the truth a bit, huh?" Angel asked, smiling slightly at the white lie.

"Well… they don't read the advice columns, and they were cute; I didn't think it'd do any harm," Sarina said, shrugging awkwardly as she smiled slightly at Angel, apparently appreciating his weak attempt to find the humour in her tragic mistake. "Stupid, huh?"

"I've heard worse reasons for lying," Angel said, smiling reassuringly at her. "What else can you tell me about them?"

* * *

  
Walking back into his apartment, Angel wasn't entirely surprised to only find Wesley present; Paige and the others would naturally want to be with their family, and Doyle had clearly taken his assigned duty to stick with Phoebe seriously even if he couldn't do much.

"Anything?" he asked, looking anxiously at Wesley.

"Some things, anyway, none of which are positive; acidic internal fluid is the least of our concerns right now," Wesley replied grimly, looking up at the vampire. "How about yourself; any luck locating Wilson?"

"Not yet, but I did find Phoebe's friend Sarina in the same condition," Angel said, walking over to a phone book and starting to flip through it. "I think we can assume that the other girls are the same, so that makes at least four."

"And that's not the end of it," Wesley said, looking grimly at his new employer. "According to a call I received from Mr Doyle, there are at least seven heartbeats inside Miss Halliwell, possibly more. Add in your news about multiple pregnancies…"

"Someone's raising an army," Angel said, nodding in grim confirmation of Wesley's thoughts before he looked back at the phone book, putting it down and moving to grab a piece of paper to write down an address.

"Gun clubs?" Wesley said, looking over Angel's shoulder at the page that he'd opened the book at. "Guns can kill them? Well, that makes it easier…"

"Sarina said that Wilson and his buddies hang out at some private gun club, Guns and Cigars; she just didn't know the exact address," Angel explained. "While I find them, you work on narrowing down the species. Maybe we can figure out a way to terminate this without hurting Phoebe."

"And if we can't?" Wesley asked.

"We work out what to do when they're born," Angel said grimly, before he turned to head for the door.

For a moment, Wesley looked like he was about to say something, but clearly decided against it; Angel might have hired the guy, but he wasn't going to listen to anything Wesley had to say about the unlikelihood of Phoebe surviving this pregnancy.

They'd come too close to losing Doyle already, and they'd been unable to do anything to save Cole- even if Angel sometimes felt that he was the only one who really mourned Cole these days-; he was _not_ going to lose Phoebe.


	40. Aborting the Haxil Beast

Walking into the gun club, Angel didn't take long to find Wilson; the man might have deleted his contact details, but he had too significant a reputation to completely drop off the grid at such short notice, so finding a picture of him hadn't been that difficult. Walking up behind the man as he stood at the firing range shooting at the target at the other end, Angel tried not to feel too smug at the sight of Wilson jumping at the sight of him when the other man turned around; considering the ear protection he'd been wearing, sneaking up the guy wasn't exactly a challenge.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that in here," Wilson said, casually removing his safety glasses and reloading the gun's magazine as he looked at Angel. "That's how accidents happen."

"Speaking of accidents," Angel said, leaning casually against the wall, "I'm a friend of Phoebe Halliwell's."

"This is a private club," Wilson said, briefly staring upwards in frustration before he turned to face the vampire. "Featured word, _private_."

"You don't talk to me, I'll kick your ass," Angel replied. "Featured word; _ass_."

"So… what are you to her, anyway?" Wilson asked, looking at him with a slight smirk. "Jealous ex?"

"I'm dating her sister, actually," Angel said, enjoying the slight shock that crossed Wilson's face at that comment. "Oh, that's right; Sarina said she didn't have anyone, right? That's something you clearly forgot about women, Wilson; sometimes, they'll at least bend the truth to get what they're after."

His eyes clearly panicked, Wilson raised his gun to aim it at Angel, only for Angel to casually grab him by the wrist and twist, watching in satisfaction as the gun fell from Wilson's grip before Angel spun him around and wrapped an arm around his throat.

" _Not_ smart," Angel said, releasing his grip to shove Wilson against the nearest wall, looking at him in an assessing manner as he quickly contemplated how Wilson had reacted to his attack. "You're human, so you're not the father, which means you and your friends are just a link…"

Wilson attempted to run past Angel, but that would have been laughable even if Angel had been human, never mind a vampire as old as he was at present, the vampire detective effortlessly grabbing Wilson's shirt and pinning him to the wall.

"So, how does this work?" he asked. "Because I'll tell you this for nothing; if Phoebe dies, you have _no_ idea what you're in for."

"Neither do you," Wilson said, glaring back at him. "You haven't got a _clue_ what you're dealing with…"

"Trust me, I could say the same to you," Angel began, before the sound of footsteps reached his ears. A quick moment of thought was all that Angel needed before he stepped back, releasing his grip on Wilson as he turned his attention to the group of young men now surrounding him.

If these weren't Wilson's associate 'surrogates', he would be _very_ surprised.

"Someone's mommy didn't teach him to play nice," one of the men said, looking mockingly at Angel.

"And yours did?" Angel asked, looking at the group around him as his mind raced; if they weren't demons themselves- which, judging by their scents, was the case; there was something slightly off, but it wasn't enough for them to even be half-demons like Doyle-, there had to be some explanation for their connection to the entity responsible for Phoebe's pregnancy…

"I think I'm getting the picture here, anyway," he said, still looking around at the club members. "You guys proxy for the big daddy demon, right? He imbues you with his life force or whatever it is you're implanting in these women?"

"He has trouble finding his own dates," one of the others said, smiling with a self-satisfied manner that would have made Spike look humble. "We just… help him out a little, that's all?"

"Shut up, Jason," Wilson said, glaring over at the moustached speaker.

"And you get what in return; fame, money, success?" Angel asked, looking around at the group.

The silence and mocking smirks that greeted his question was all the answer he needed.

"That's it, isn't it?" he said, once again disgusted at how low mankind could sink; sometimes, it amazed him that the same gene pool could produce people as heroic as the Halliwells and as pathetic as these people. "How else would losers like you get ahead? I mean, you'd have to become procreative surrogates for a vile demonic entity…"

"Mostly, I do it for the sex," Jason said; Angel was going to have to make sure to give that guy a particularly powerful kick when the opportunity arose.

"Welcome to San Francisco," Wilson said with a smile. "Considering what else we could have paid, there are worse things to be in business with."

The fact that they knew enough about the supernatural to know that the demon could have demanded a more personal price almost made Angel even angrier at them; he might not approve of the idea of selling your soul to receive what you wanted, but at least that way the only person you were hurting was yourself…

"Where is he?" Angel asked, walking up to stand directly in front of Wilson. "Where is this thing you worship?"

"Even if we did tell you where to find him," Wilson replied dismissively, "it won't matter, because you're about to have an accident."

The sensation of a gun being fired and a bullet penetrating his chest were a slight shock- Angel hadn't pegged these guys as the type of people who were willing to do their own dirty work-, but that thought quickly became irrelevant as he registered the casual stances of the men standing around him; clearly, they thought that the bullets would be enough to take him down for good and were already dismissing him as a threat.

Without a moment's hesitation, he reverted to his vampire appearance and stood up, knocking the gun out of Wilson's hand with a kick that would be too quick for them to stop while not quick enough for them not to be able to see him move.

"I _really_ don't like it when people shoot me," Angel said, glaring at the shocked men around him before he flew into action, kicking the gun out of Wilson's hands. Jason tried to charge him from the right, but Angel effortlessly grabbed him and threw him into another man standing to the left, subsequently turning around to send a fourth man to the ground with a punch to the face. A kick to the chest knocked down the man he'd earlier hit with Jason- evidently the guy hadn't received the message to stay down- before he threw another two men into the firing range behind them, turning his attention back to Wilson in time to kick him through the glass door that led to the club's entrance.

"Now," Angel said, looking down at Wilson with a cold glare, "you're going to tell me what I want to know, or I'm going to have to make this even _less_ pleasant than it already is."

What he'd done might be an excessive use of force against humans, but considering what they might be up against and what they'd done to innocent women for the sake of nothing more than their own careers, he felt that it was justified.

* * *

  
Groaning in frustration as she blinked her eyes open, her head smarting from the beating she'd sustained that had left her in that position, Paige ran over the last few details that had taken place before she was knocked out.

The four of them- Piper, Leo, Doyle and Paige- had been working on trying to figure out what they were dealing with while Phoebe waited in the kitchen- at one point she had actually drunk some of the blood the Halliwells had taken to keeping in the fridge in case Angel became thirsty while he was visiting them-, when Wesley had come over to reveal that he'd identified the creature based on the sonograms and a few descriptions in his books. Paige hadn't had time to see the picture herself, but once Phoebe had looked at the book Wesley had brought with him, she'd… well, the best term that Paige could come up with was that she'd flipped, hitting Piper and Leo in the head with the book before they could react, subsequently taking Paige, Doyle and Wesley by surprise before they think of a better way to put her down without hurting her.

That was the annoying thing about fighting a pregnant woman; even if Phoebe didn't _want_ that baby, Paige hadn't wanted to risk her sister's health by hitting her while pregnant…

"Ugh…" Paige heard someone mutter off to the side, raising her head to look over at the source of the sound, smiling in relief at the sight of Piper gradually regaining consciousness.

"Piper?" Paige said, looking at her sister anxiously as she sat up, noting Doyle, Leo and Wesley lying around the kitchen with no sign of Phoebe, the sound of crying upstairs indicating that Wyatt was awake.

"Where's…?" Piper began, before she registered her son's cries, shaking her head as she got to her feet and hurried up the stairs, leaving Paige to crawl over to examine the three unconscious men. Leo was already beginning to stir, but Wesley still appeared to be rather battered, and considering the punishment that Doyle had been through lately she thought it best to err on the side of caution. Holding out her hands over their heads, Paige concentrated for a few moments- healing Doyle's injuries was trickier, but so long as she just focused on the times she'd seen him in his human guise in her head she was able to 'trick' her healing ability into treating Doyle as human-, and finally stepped back, as Wesley and Doyle blinked their eyes open and looked up at her.

"What…?" Wesley said, looking at her in confusion.

"Phoebe went nuts when you showed her that book," Paige said, reaching over to pick up the text that Phoebe had used as a weapon earlier. "I take it the demon was responsible for her sudden protective instincts?"

"Most- ah!- most likely," Wesley said, wincing as he sat up and took the book from her, opening it to a page to indicate a large creature with massive horns and a very muscular physical structure.

"Oh God…" Paige said, her eyes widening in horror at the sight.

If Phoebe was _pregnant_ with something like that- with _seven_ somethings like that-, Paige was amazed her womb hadn't torn itself apart already…

"Well, these sixteenth century engravers tended to exaggerate-" Wesley began, looking awkwardly at them.

"We don't have time to think about _that_ ," Paige said, just before the sound of a phone ringing redirected her attention as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell. "Yeah?"

" _Paige, it's Angel_ ," her boyfriend's voice said over the line.

"Angel?" Paige repeated almost automatically, suddenly wondering what had prompted this call. "What's going on?"

" _I found Wilson and some of his buddies_ ," Angel replied, sounding like he was wincing as he spoke. " _Whatever it is Phoebe and her friends are carrying around inside them, those guys aren't the fathers_."

"We know," Paige replied, glancing at the text in front of her; it wasn't English, but she thought she'd identified the part referring to this thing's name. "Wes has identified it as a… Haxil beast; it's some kind of inner earth demon."

" _How's Phoebe_?" Angel asked.

"Attacked us and ran off after Wes identified the father," Paige said grimly, before putting the phone on loudspeaker so that the Watcher could contribute to the discussion.

"She became, ah, insanely protective when we identified the Haxil as the parent of her… her, ah…" Wesley said, before he picked up the book once more, scanning over its pages. "I fear she may have gone to rendezvous with it."

" _She has_ ," Angel confirmed. " _Wilson and his buddies gave me the location of the shrine they made to it; that's probably where they're heading_."

"How would Phoebe know that?" Doyle asked, leaning over to better address the phone.

" _She's telepathically linked to its unborn_ ," Angel clarified. " _According to Wilson, that's how it can connect with the mothers; they ensure that the children are taken to the right place to b safely born_."

"A psychic umbilical cord?" Paige said, looking at her friends sceptically.

"It makes sense," Wesley said, nodding thoughtfully. "The shock of such rapid growth would normally be self-defeating as the mothers would be unable to cope with the sudden strain; the Haxil must be controlling and empowering its unborn spawn to ensure their survival…"

" _So all we have to do to kill the kids is cut the cord_ ," Angel concluded.

"In other words, once it's dead its kids automatically abort themselves?" Paige said with a relieved grin. "Well, that's simple."

"Unfortunately, there's still just one tiny problem," Wesley said, looking awkwardly at the book.

" _What's that_?" Angel asked.

"Well…" Wesley said, looking uncomfortably up at the other four in the room as he continued to speak, "I don't like to use the words 'impossible to kill', but… fire won't kill it, decapitation won't kill it… and it's really huge."

"Oh," Piper said, looking awkwardly at the book; she couldn't quite make out anything defining the creature's size, but anything that looked like that and was described as 'huge' didn't create an encouraging picture. "And… I take it magic won't be an option?"

"It doesn't look likely; something powerful enough to create this link is probably resistant to most forms of magic," Wesley said, grimly studying the book before him. "Add in the fact that this thing is so physically grounded that vanquishing potions probably won't work, and…"

" _Wesley_ ," Angel said, an edge to his voice that suggested to Paige that he'd just had an idea, " _can you shoot straight_?"

"Pardon?" Wesley said in surprise, Piper and Paige exchanging their own confused glances at the sudden change of topic.

"If you're thinking we can just blind this thing or something-" Piper began.

" _I was actually thinking something more… thorough_ ," Angel said, his voice firm as he spoke.

Paige had a sudden feeling that, whatever Angel's plan was, that Haxil beast was _really_ going to get it…

* * *

  
Looking up at the abandoned chemical factory that Angel had identified as the location of their enemy, Paige wondered what it said about her that she was actually feeling rather relaxed about the situation she found herself about to face.

Here she was, going up against a nigh-invulnerable demon with only an ex-Watcher and a few small weapons on her, her only potential back-up being Angel who was currently absent- Piper and Leo were staying behind with Wyatt, although Paige knew that Leo would be on call if needed- and she felt just as comfortable doing things this way as she would feel when dealing with magical demons with her sisters.

A part of her missed the closeness that Piper and Phoebe clearly shared with each other, but the rest of her had to acknowledge that there were advantages to the training she'd experienced with Angel; she wasn't completely dependent on spells and her sisters to deal with a threat, even if she enjoyed spending time with them.

 _Family_ , she mused to herself as she and Wesley entered the warehouse. _It's complicated, but it's worth it when it works_.

Entering the main part of the factory, Paige had to resist the urge to throw up as her nostrils detected the scent of something so revolting she couldn't even find the words to describe it. Walking along a corridor surrounded by various pipes, they finally reached the source of the stench; a large vat, with a short staircase leading up to the top and into the vat, filled with some kind of yellow-brown liquid. More significantly, Phoebe was inside the vat along with five other young women, dressed in white robes that put Paige uncomfortably in mind of the attire stereotypically favoured by sacrifices.

"OK," Paige said, walking up to the edge of the vat to glare at her sister, "I know we've had our differences, but for the sake of our noses, can you _please_ get out of that stuff?"

"We don't expect you to understand," Phoebe said, looking at the ex-Watcher with a stare that was almost more disturbing than the blank that Paige had come to expect when dealing with mind control; aside from her fixation on protecting her demonic offspring, Phoebe almost seemed normal.

"Yeah, good guess, and you _really_ need to get out of this before things get any more sick," Paige said, walking up the steps to stand on the rim of the vat to better address her older sister. "Look, Phoebe, you've already gone through one horrible demonic pregnancy, and these things don't even _look_ human; can we _please_ call time out on this mess before someone gets hurt?"

"We serve our master," Phoebe replied with a malicious smirk that was definitely not normal.

"Please come before…" Wesley began, only to be interrupted by the sudden sound of approaching feet, belonging to something of such size that the ground around them shook. Exchanging a brief glance with Wesley, Paige turned to look at the source of the footsteps, only to find herself staring at a demon that seemed to be the size of the manor, with rhinoceros-like grey skin and sharp, protruding teeth, walking through a large hole in the wall just behind the vat.

" _ **Who are the interlopers who think you could disturb the birth of my children**_?" the Haxil said (For some bizarre reason, Paige was suddenly reminded of the voice of the Cave of Wonders from _Aladdin_ ), as it raised itself up to its full height. " _ **Who are you**_?"

"Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, rogue demon hunter," Wesley replied.

"Paige Matthews, witch and sister of one of your expectant baby mamas," Paige added.

"And we are here to fight you, sir," Wesley said, raising his fists and glaring at their new foe. "To the death; preferably yours."

" _ **You**_?" the Haxil beast said, looking scornfully at them.

"As a heathen I wouldn't expect you to be familiar with the biblical story of David and Goliath," Wesley said, "but I assure you it's of particular relevance to this situation."

"He's always like this," Paige said, smiling up at the Haxil while trying not to give in to the urge to panic; she was used to facing enemies that she could actually hit if she couldn't use magic on them, but this guy would probably barely feel anything she had to throw at him.

" _ **You said you came here to do battle**_ ," the Haxil said, raising its hands in a beckoning gesture. " _ **Then let's fight and be done**_."

"Yes, well," Wesley said, slowing inching towards the demon as he remained on the rim of the vat, "as a point of courtesy, I like to get to know my opponents, before I engage them in mortal combat. Do you, ah… do you have any hobbies?"

" _ **Enough talk**_ ," the Haxil said scornfully.

"Couldn't agree more," Angel's voice said from the corner of the room, prompting the demon, Wesley and Paige to turn and watch as the vampire rolled a gas tank down the ramp at the other side of the room.

"Sorry I'm late to the baby shower," Angel continued, walking down the ramp to pick up the recently-discarded tank. "But I _did_ bring a gift."

As Angel picked up the tank and threw it at the Haxil beast, Paige just had time to see the 'Liquid Nitrogen' label on one side of the tank as the create instinctively caught it before Wesley pulled out his gun and fired at the tank. The demon dropped the tank, but a stream of liquid nitrogen was already shooting out of the hole towards the monster, the demon letting out a terrible scream that was mimicked by the women in the vat. Paige turned around, but was relieved to see that the only thing that appeared to be happening to them was rapidly-deflating bellies as their pregnancies came to an end, the rapidly-generated offspring losing physical coherence without their 'father's power to preserve them.

As the steam faded, leaving a creature that looked more like a massive ice sculpture than a living being, Paige didn't stop to think; reaching out with her power, she silently summoned another empty container lying on the ground around them and hurled it towards the Haxil beast, allowing it to become sold just before it struck its target, leaving the creature shattered on the ground around them.

The wonders of the modern world could be a double-edged sword at times, but when it allowed them to take out things like that, Paige wasn't going to complain.

"Well," she said, turning to look at her sister with a smile as Phoebe climbed slowly out of the vat, looking shakily at the other three, as her fellow near-mothers just stared around them in confusion, "I think we can chalk that one up as a win."

The former surrogates all looked a bit shaken and confused at what had just happened to them, but at least Phoebe looked like she was already working on collecting herself; with a bit of time, Paige had little doubt that her sister would be back to her old self.


	41. Catch Those Nymphs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tricky bit of work, but I hope the result is worth it; this chapter turned out to be more complicated to rewrite than I expected…

"You know," Paige said, looking thoughtfully over at Angel as they lay in each other's arms on the couch, the credits of the movie they had just been watching going past on the screen before them, "I still can't believe that you grew up in Ireland, and you never told me that _leprechauns_ were real."

"Well, I didn't exactly know much about the Irish supernatural when I was alive, and it's never come up since I was dead," Angel said, shrugging out of a lack of anything else to do.

It was strange, but now that the topic of Irish folk-tales had come up while Paige was narrating the Halliwells' recent encounter with leprechauns, he found himself wondering if he'd ever seen any sign of them when he was alive that he'd dismissed as irrelevant in the aftermath; it wasn't like he'd paid that much attention to his childhood folk-tales in the face of everything else the family had to deal with back then…

"Fair enough," Paige said, smiling slightly at her vampire boyfriend, her welcoming smile drawing Angel away from pointless reflections on the past. "Still, at least we handled it easily enough."

Paige hated to risk jinxing it, but she had to admit that things were going rather well with their lives. P3 continued to be a success, Phoebe's column continued to be very well-read- she was actually at some function or another at a hotel involving celebrating her success that night-, and Angel Investigations was actually doing fairly well; not only had they recently helped Darryl capture a Los Angeles mafia boss who'd been doing business in San Francisco, but they were starting to attract more conventional clients as well as those brought to them by Phoebe or Doyle's visions, even if they were declining cases involving cheating spouses.

"Talking of handling things well," Angel said, looking curiously at her, "I haven't seen Piper or Phoebe for a while; how are they doing?"

"What you'd expect," Paige said, smiling at the thought. "Phoebe's enjoying her work and being a successful columnist read by millions- she's even at some dinner commemorating it tonight, last I heard-, and Piper…"

She paused for a moment, as though she'd only just realised what she was thinking about, before she looked back at her boyfriend with an awkward shrug. "Actually, looking back, I think Piper's feeling a bit… annoyed."

"Annoyed?" Angel repeated, looking at her in surprise.

"I mean, I'm trying to help while she's adjusting to being a mom, and she gets that, but still, it's… well, I'm trying to re-organise to make everything more efficient, and she's acting like I'm stepping on her toes," Paige said, sighing in frustration. "I just… we're expanding beyond the Power of Three and the Book of Shadows now; is it too much to ask for some support in making things easier?"

"You sure she's not just wanting to make sure you don't push yourself too far?" Angel pointed out. "I mean, I appreciate your help with the agency while working on the witchcraft, but there's still only so much that you can do; you have to give yourself some time to unwind."

"Is that an invitation?" Paige asked, smiling up at her boyfriend as she leaned over to give him a brief but suggestive kiss.

"Paige," Angels aid, looking pointedly at her despite the smile he felt spreading over his face at the sensation of her lips against his, "this _is_ important…"

"And I'll give it some thought; right now, I'm thinking that it's been a while since we did anything like _this_ , so maybe we should… pick up the pace a bit?" Paige asked, smiling encouragingly at her boyfriend.

Seducing Angel into silence probably wasn't the best approach, but Paige just wanted to focus on their time together without any questions; it was the first time they'd had an evening off to spend together for a while, and she wasn't about to waste it.

With Piper disliking the changes made to the herb cabinets, Wesley and Doyle off attending to their current missing person's case, and Phoebe having slept with her new boss at the paper the previous night- to say nothing of the potential issues that might raise in the agency, given Doyle's continued crush on her middle sister-, Paige just wanted a chance to have some time to herself…

"Uh… Paige?" a familiar voice suddenly said, its awkward tone doing little to endear its owner to Paige.

"OK," Paige said, turning away from Angel to glare at Leo, "whatever happened to _privacy_?"

"I just got an alert from the Elders," Leo said apologetically. "Right now we need the Power of Three, so…"

"The day off's over, huh?" Angel said, exchanging a frustrated yet sympathetic glance with Paige before he sighed and stood up. "Well, let's get going."

To his credit, Leo didn't bother protesting about Angel's presence; Wesley might still be a provisional enough member that he wouldn't be called in immediately, and Doyle was occupied with the current case, but when Angel volunteered his services that wasn't the kind of back-up that could be easily ignored.

* * *

  
"So," Phoebe asked, as the three witches and one vampire looked curiously at the Whitelighter who'd called them all together, "what's up now?"

"What do you know about wood nymphs?" Leo asked.

"Wood nymphs?" Piper repeated.

"Yeah, you know," Paige said, briefly pausing to recall what she'd read about them in the Book of Shadows. "Frolicking little tree sprites, protectors of the forest, always in the company of a satyr…"

"Yeah, I know what they are, it was a rhetorical question," Piper said.

"What about 'em?" Phoebe asked, looking back at Leo in a semi-obvious attempt to avert a potential argument that might have arisen (A fact that Paige was grateful for as she wasn't sure how it had started anyway).

"Well," Leo said, "I guess a couple have been spotted in the city by mortals and the Elders were worried about exposure."

"That's it?" Angel said, looking at Leo in confusion. "That… well, no offence, but that just seems a bit… minor… for something that needs us to get involved."

"Except that nymphs don't abandon their forest unless they've been flushed out by something," Piper put in.

"A demon?" Paige said, standing up with a smile just as Piper did the same, both sisters saying "I'll get right on it" before they registered the other's actions.

"Hey," Paige said, looking over at Piper, "you're tired-"

"And I'll be in the attic anyway," Piper countered, throwing a baby bottle to Leo and heading upstairs.

"Paige, will you orb to the office and grab my laptop?" Phoebe asked. "I have to finish this article and I don't want to see Jason."

"Hey, if you've got a problem with your boss, don't use me as your intermediary," Paige said, looking over at Phoebe with a pointed stare. "If you can't do it yourself, that's your problem, not mine; clear?"

"I'll just… head back to the car and see if I can find those nymphs before things get out of hand," Angel said, standing up and indicating the door with a slight shrug; the car might stand out a bit, but so long as he was careful it would probably be easier to drive around the city than worry about the Halliwells' complicated social lives.

"Probably a good call," Leo said with a slightly hopeful smile before he glanced over at Paige. "You should… well-"

"Go along as well in case we find somewhere he can't go?" Paige said, saving Leo from having to voice the alternative explanation that Piper needed to feel useful again; she didn't feel that she was being _that_ interfering in her sister's affairs, but there was no point arguing with Leo when he had that hopeful-puppy-esque expression on his face.

Actually, she was almost grateful about this latest turn of events; after everything they'd dealt with recently, it was refreshing to only have to worry about keeping magic secret rather than deal with a group of ruthless demons out to kill people.

* * *

  
Sighing in frustration as he sat down in the car after another search had turned up no sign of the nymphs, Angel looked over at Paige as she sat in the seat next to him, terminating another phone call.

"Any other news?" he asked.

"Nope," Paige replied with a sigh; the fact that it was later in the day at least meant that Angel was at less risk of bursting into flames, but . "We're running out of likely nymph-based locations, Piper's scrying isn't helping us find anything useful, and we're so busy chasing up clues that I don't have time to try anything else."

"Like what?" Angel asked.

"Maybe work out some spell to find where they came from and what's happening here… I dunno, I'm used to just needing to work out how to kill it, not track down its home," Paige said, sighing slightly at her boyfriend with a suddenly dejected expression on her face. "Seriously, it's been just over a year since I was introduced to this world, and I'm already so casual about having to _kill_ people…"

"Hey," Angel said, reaching over to smile reassuringly at her, guessing what was troubling her without her needing to elaborate. "You're not a killer, Paige; you've taken what you know about the world as it is and learned to use it to protect people. The methods may be more… violent… than what you originally set out to use, but they're still the same goal; you're still… _you_."

Paige had to smile at Angel's assessment of her; for a vampire who often claimed that he didn't get people, he was good at knowing the right thing to say when it really counted.

She might recognise that they often ended up facing demons who were so dangerous that killing them was the only practical means of stopping them for good, and she wasn't going to lose any sleep over what she'd have to do to protect the innocent, but it was still reassuring to hear that she wasn't a monster.

Whatever else she was, and whatever training she'd received from Angel, she wasn't a natural killer, and she'd never be completely comfortable with having to kill anything.

Still, sometimes it was hard to have confidence in herself when dealing with such moments as Piper getting so automatically defensive over her attempt to colour-code the Book of Shadows… she was just trying to add a personal touch to what they had; was it asking too much to feel like Piper was willing to accept her as _her_ , rather than the 'new Prue'?

That was probably an unfair assessment- Piper and Phoebe had been great about their dynamic for the last few months, and she had been growing out beyond the standards set by Prue to explore her own strengths and weakness, particularly thanks to her training with Angel-, but there was always that part of her that would keep on trying to live up to her 'predecessor'…

"Hello?" she said, automatically answering her phone as it started ringing.

" _Hey, it's me_ ," Phoebe replied. " _I'm stuck at work; I forgot there was a staff meeting. Have you seen the news yet_?"

"No, Angel and I are still trying to work out how to find nymphs while Piper tries to find something in the Book," Paige said, looking over at Angel as she activated her phone's loudspeaker option; Angel could hear both sides of a phone conversation on his own, but there was no harm in making it easier for him.

" _OK_ ," Phoebe continued, " _well, find a TV or broadcasting device of some make or description because they're all over it_."

"What?" Paige said in confusion, Angel looking intrigued at the direction the conversation was taking even if he could only here part of it. "What do you mean?"

" _Nobody knows who they are yet, but believe me, the demon's not the only one looking for him now_ ," Phoebe continued.

"Where were they last spotted?" Paige asked, Angel taking the hint and pulling out a map from the car's glove compartment.

" _Uh_ …" Phoebe said, sounding like she was trying to think of something, " _downtown, City Plaza. Maybe they'll go back there_?"

"It's the best we've got," Angel said, turning the steering wheel to send the car towards the plaza, weaving through the quieter streets of a city approaching night-time (Paige was always surprised at just how different San Francisco could be when it was approaching the end of the day; it might not be exactly silent, but it wasn't the 'city that never sleeps' either).

* * *

  
A few hours later, Paige was starting to wonder at the wisdom of this whole idea. Wesley had called earlier to confirm that he and Doyle were still tracking their missing person- it was looking increasingly like the guy was just another college student who'd freaked out from recent exam-related stress and decided to bail out, but his father had paid enough money for them to at least try and follow it to the end-, which at least meant that she and Angel didn't have to feel guilty about the agency having to cope with a crisis without them, but that just left her feeling more frustrated about current events.

God, this was the longest night when they'd done nothing that she could recall; San Francisco might not have a _massive_ vampire population, but it was still enough that they could take out a vamp or two when they went patrolling during the quiet nights between demon-related crises…

"Nothing," Angel said, looking at the fountain in frustration once more.

"Well, it was probably a long shot anyway," Paige said, shrugging slightly as she looked at the vampire. "Maybe we should give this a break; I mean, they've been here once, so they'd have to be stupid to come back…"

"You _are_ remembering that these nymphs have already been seen by a fair amount of the city, right?" Angel asked, looking over at Paige with a slight smile. "They might powerful, but if anything I've heard about them is accurate, I'm guessing they're not the most… 'worldly' of creatures?"

"Point…" Paige conceded, just before the fountain flared up and then three women who could only be the nymphs appeared in the fountain, wearing thin green dresses, giggling and splashing around in the water like children.

"Well… at least they're having fun, right?" Paige said, looking over at Angel with an awkward smile; she knew Angel loved her, but it was never comforting when your boyfriend had a chance to get an eyeful of three women wearing those clothes. "So… what now? Wait and see if something attacks?"

The question of what to do was apparently answered when a new figure appeared and hurled a burst of fire at one of the nymphs, engulfing the target in flames before she disappeared with a scream, leaving the other two nymphs holding each other in terror as they stared at the killer.

"Last chance," the man who could only be a demon said, looking grimly at them both. "Where's the spring?"

"Please, help us!" one of the nymphs screamed at Angel and Paige as the vampire and the witch hurried towards the fountain. Stuck for alternatives, Angel pulled out a dagger and plunged it into the demon's back, only partly surprised when the demon fell over while remaining moving.

"Bail?" Paige asked, as she placed her hands on the remaining two nymphs.

"Bail," Angel agreed, relaxing only after the familiar feel of orbing surrounded them as a burst of fire came from the demon's hands, the lights taking them away before the attack could reach them.

* * *

  
Piper supposed that she could see the nymphs' focus on their 'duty' as commendable, but right now it was starting to put her in mind of children who needed to learn the meaning of 'no'. Apparently, even after they'd nearly been fried by a demon that was looking for them for some unspecified reason- the fountain was a likely guess, but there might be alternatives they just didn't know of yet-, the nymphs were still determined to track down their satyr, complaining about the confinement being against their outdoors nature, even summoning vines from the wooden doors to try and evoke the nature they were meant to be preserving.

She was just relieved when Leo finally got back; she might have wanted to try and handle this herself, but she wasn't going to turn down help if it was available.

"What's going on down here?" Leo asked, looking around the room.

"The nymphs we found are… going a bit stir-crazy," Angel said, out of a lack of anything else to say in this situation, as the nymphs suddenly began to dance around Leo (Piper briefly wondered why they hadn't done that for Angel, but quickly concluded that his vampire status probably had something to do with it; if nymphs were responsible for nurturing life and nature, Angel being physically dead probably meant they didn't see much that they could do with him or something like that).

"Uh… hi," Leo said, looking awkwardly at the new arrivals as they started to move around him with appreciative smiles on their faces. "No wonder the Elders were worried about exposure."

"Who's the sexy beast?" one of the nymphs asked, looking over at Piper.

"The beast is married, to me," Piper said, looking pointedly at the nymphs. "Now, I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade, but didn't you two just lose a sister? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, grieving?"

"Oh, we don't mourn death, we celebrate it," one of the nymphs said (Piper decided not to point out their lack of interest in involving Angel in the celebration; not only would it sound petty and pointless, but the vampire was clearly already uncomfortable about their presence, and her earlier theory probably still applied considering that Angel wasn't actually doing anything after death other than not stopping).

"It's the way of nature," the other nymph said. "The eternal spring we protect ensures that life is always renewed in the forest."

"So… she'll be reborn?" Angel asked uncertainly.

"If not in the plants and trees, then in the wind and rain that brings them sustenance," the blonde nymph explained with a smile.

"Isn't that awesome?" the brunette said, reaching over to take her sister's hand.

That was the problem dealing with purely magical creatures like these as opposed to demons like the Straleys, Piper supposed; they had such a bizarre world-view, but at the same time you couldn't completely criticise it because the only thing 'wrong' about it was that it didn't coincide with your view on certain issues, rather than it involving someone being killed or something like that.

"Still," the first nymph said, "without her, we may not find our new Satyr. We need three to perform the dance or we may not hear his call."

"I'm a little confused," Piper put in. "See, if you guys protect the spring, what do you need a Satyr for?"

"Oh, because that's the way it's always been," the nymph said, giggling along with her counterpart at the apparent absurdity of such a question.

"Oh," Piper sad, even as the glance she directed at Angel made it clear that she felt that excuse was a poor one; she might have encountered several demons who operated by that rule, but she'd encountered at least a few who weren't willing to do something just because it had always been that way…

"So… do you know who the demon is?" Paige asked.

"No," the blonde nymph said, the brunette examining Leo's hair in a childishly curious manner. "Only that he wanted us to bring him to the eternal spring to- to drink from it, we assume."

"Which would make him immortal and indestructible," Leo concluded.

"Oh, another one of those?" Angel said with a sigh. "Typical; demons always want what they don't have…

"Taking of needing things, we need Phoebe," Piper said, just before the missing sister's voice began to call out from the entrance hall.

"Good timing," Angel said, smiling over at Piper.

"Quite," Piper said, nodding at the vampire. "You and Leo just… keep an eye on them."

As the two sisters walked out to the hall, Leo and Angel exchanged awkward glances as the nymphs continued to dance around the Whitelighter, leaving the vampire to look awkwardly at his friend as the sisters discussed a recently-acquired vase of flowers that had apparently been sent to Phoebe by Jason.

Stuck for anything else to do, Angel checked over a map that Piper had been analysing earlier, trying to see if there was some pattern in the manner that the nymphs had been appearing that might help them find the demon that had been tracking them. As he heard Paige and Piper beginning to argue about Paige's attempt to re-organise the ingredients and spells versus Piper's greater experience with witchcraft, Angel made a mental note not to get involved; he was Paige's primary teacher when it came to hand-to-hand combat, but in terms of witchcraft, Piper had the greater experience…

God, this was turning into another situation that was making him miss the clarity of the days when he'd been evil; at least when you were evil you didn't have to worry about hurting peoples' feelings when you were trying to help out…


	42. Inspiring Nymphs

It was probably a poor attitude to have when you were a protector of the innocent, but Angel couldn't help it; he just wasn't feeling comfortable with these nymphs. Maybe it was their unnerving naïve manner, maybe it was some vampire thing prompting him to just feel naturally uncomfortable about beings of pure life…

Whatever it was, something about this situation just felt off with him, even without the tension between Paige and Piper becoming constantly worse as Piper objected to Paige's continued role in the witch side of things while Paige saw it as a natural development of her presence; things were already awkward in the Halliwells' house, and the nymphs, for all that they meant well, were just making it worse.

The nymphs weren't exactly unpleasant company, but they weren't doing anything to make this easier, particularly not now that Leo had handed them over to Piper and Paige as he headed up to deal with Wyatt. Out of a lack of anything else to do with himself, Angel had checked in with Doyle and Wesley on their current case, but with things under control at their end it was easier for him to remain here…

Glancing up at the sound of footsteps, Angel saw Piper heading up the stairs after Leo, the sound of voices from the other end of the corridor suggesting that Paige was talking with the nymphs about something. Angel thought about moving to join her, but his discomfort about the nymphs' attitude prompted him to remain where he was for the moment, settling back down in the chair he was sitting in and turning his attention back to the book he'd picked up earlier.

Maybe it was unfair of him to take a time out right now, but with his and Paige's plans for the night off interrupted and nothing he could usefully do to help out right now, it seemed like all he could do right now was take the opportunity to catch up with some of his leisure reading to draw his attention off the tensions upstairs or Paige and Phoebe's attempts to prepare a potion in the next room while the nymphs fussed over some flowers…

The sound of the doorbell ringing and the departing footsteps prompted Angel to get up to check on the nymphs and the remaining sister in the kitchen, walking into the room just in time to see the two nymphs kiss Paige on the cheeks, her lilac top and dark trousers changing into a long light green dress as her hair grew several inches in length and the style adjusted to be bunched up at the top.

"What the _Hell_?" he said, looking at her in surprise.

"Angel?" Paige said, looking up at him with a shake of her head, as though she was trying to clear her mind of something, before she focused on her new attire. "What just-?"

"You're with us now, Paige!" one of the nymphs said, grinning in approval at her.

"Excuse me?" Angel said, looking at the blonde nymph incredulously. "You just… turned my girlfriend into a nymph without consent and think that's it?"

"We need three-" the nymph began, she and her sister reaching down to take Paige's hands before Angel stepped in to grab their wrists and haul them away from his girlfriend.

"You don't _need_ three; you've always _had_ three, there's a difference," he said grimly, trying to keep his voice low; he could hear Phoebe talking to someone outside, and this wasn't the kind of situation they wanted anyone outside the family paying too much attention to.

"Paige, are you all right?"

"I'm…" Paige said, looking down at herself in confusion. "Actually, I'm OK; there's this odd music in my ears, but…"

"What?" the brunette nymph said, looking at her in surprise. "You're _ignoring_ us?"

"But we need you!" the blonde nymph said, looking urgently at Paige. "We need three to find our satyr-"

"And you've got a demon after your enchanted spring; you need to adapt or you're all as dead as your sister," Angel said, glaring at the nymph before she could go into more detail about that issue; it wasn't that he was unsympathetic, but he wasn't particularly fond of people who forced this kind of transformation on other people to make them go along with their plans.

"You can't be doing this because of _him_ ," the brunette nymph said, looking at Paige with the closest thing to indignation they'd expressed so far as she indicated Angel. "He's a dead thing-"

" _Hey_ ," Paige interrupted, glaring indignantly at the nymph, initial confusion forgotten in the face of this direct threat to Angel. "What happened to the whole 'death is a beautiful part of the cycle of life' thing?"

"It's the vampire thing, isn't it?" Angel said, rolling his eyes as he looked at the nymphs. "I'm not actually _decaying_ even though I'm physically dead, so I'm not contributing anything to your vision of how life and death are 'meant' to work…"

"Ah," Paige said, rolling her eyes as she glared at the nymphs before walking over to give Angel a sympathetic hug. "For what it's worth, I still don't care about that; witch or nymph, all I need you to be is Angel."

"But… but how are we going to find our satyr?" the blonde nymph asked, looking at Angel in confusion, their expression leaving him uncomfortably reminded of children who didn't realise that they'd made a mistake.

"Well…" Angel said, looking awkwardly at the nymphs even as he kept an ear out for the conversation in the outer hall; it sounded like Phoebe had persuaded her current guest that she wasn't able to talk to him at the moment, but he should try and keep them here for the moment. "We'll… look into that later; in the meantime, just… stay here?"

"And… we'll dance later?" Paige said, reaching out to stroke her fingers seductively over Angel's chest before she pulled back, a slightly embarrassed expression on her face. "Sorry; don't know where that came from…"

"Don't worry about it," Angel said, smiling reassuringly at her despite the sudden reminder that Paige wasn't quite herself right now.

They needed to work this out soon, or whatever had happened to Paige might not be reversible, and then whatever changes it was causing might start to _really_ have an impact on Paige's behaviour; the nymphs might be looking apologetic about it, but the fact that Paige was still one of them did little to make Angel regret his earlier thoughts.

That was the problem with being the good guy; you had to tolerate people even when their perspectives annoyed you, so long as they weren't actually causing anyone any harm…

* * *

  
"Seriously, they turned Paige into a _nymph_?" Piper said, looking at Leo and Phoebe in frustration as they sat over a map in the kitchen, trying to work out some way of finding the demon they were looking for despite their lack of information. "What was the _point_ of that?"

"Look, Paige already worked out a vanquishing potion for this thing when we find it, so all we need to do is stop it and the original nymphs can get back to finding a replacement themselves," Phoebe said, looking encouragingly at her older sister while trying not to think about the fact that her youngest was dancing around in the next room and apparently only staying where she was because of the vampire she was dating. "As for the nymph thing, she's still in control, and that's all that matters; if she was the average nymph, she'd be out there dancing like wild already."

"Yeah, that reminds me; why _isn't_ Paige out there… frolicking?" Piper asked, looking over at Leo. "I mean, you said that they might have turned her into one of them because they wanted to give her a chance to take time out, but she still seems to be reasonably normal…"

"Mainly when she's with Angel," Leo said, looking over at his wife and sister-in-law. "Which I think is what contributes to her current state…"

"Hold on; you really think that Angel is helping her remain… well, _her_?" Piper asked, looking curiously at Leo as she indicated the other room.

"Well, it's like the nymphs said; he's a dead thing that doesn't fit the natural order of things," Leo said with a shrug.

"They like you and _you're_ dead-" Phoebe began to point out.

"Because my primary purpose as a Whitelighter is the preservation of life; I'm still playing a part in the cycle even if it's an unusual one," Leo explained. "Angel's very nature relies on the consumption of blood and killing others, taking life to sustain death; no matter how he's changed as a person, what he is still violates the laws that the nymphs depend on. The fact that Paige has such a close connection to him is probably helping her hold on to her natural identity on top of the nymph's powers, but… well…"

"No guarantee how long that'll last, huh?" Phoebe said, long familiar with Leo's expression when presenting potentially bad news.

"No," Leo said. "This isn't exactly something that happens often, so-"

"Where are you going?" Angel's voice suddenly yelled. Not even bothering to check with the others, the Halliwells and Leo hurried for the hall to see the nymphs leading Paige towards the door, a slightly vacant smile on the faces of the two original nymphs while Paige just looked confused.

"Our satyr is calling for us," the brunette nymph said, smiling as she walked out of the door with only a brief glance back at Angel. "Don't you hear his call?"

Piper wasn't sure if she'd ever worked with a more frustrating bunch of innocents; convincing humans that magic was real was often tricky, but these nymphs didn't even seem to care about the fact that they were putting themselves in danger…

* * *

  
"Look," Angel said, the vampire hurrying out of the house to grab Paige's free hand, "I know you're going through a lot right now, but this isn't the time to run off-!"

The vampire suddenly found himself overwhelmed by a sensation of moving in a manner that he couldn't identify- it wasn't orbing or shimmering, but he was definitely being transported by magic in some way; he felt like he was moving _through_ something- before he was once again standing near the fountain that he and Paige had visited earlier, this time with an unknown man standing in front of it playing on an old-fashioned set of pipes, dressed in loose, old-fashioned clothing. As Angel released his grip on Paige's hand and watched from the shadows among the bushes, the nymphs moved into position to dance around the man with the pipes

"Welcome, my little nymphs," the figure said, sounding far too satisfied about this 'reunion' for Angel's liking (Call him picky, but the man sounded like he was glad to see them for more personal reasons than the 'professional' ones that a satyr was meant to fulfil). "Welcome."

"Hold on a minute here," Angel said, walking out from the bushes to stand in front of the fountain, glaring at the man before him; he might not have any weapons, but depending on what this guy was he could probably deal with most of the obvious possibilities if this guy tried something. "You're the new satyr?"

"Of course he is," the blonde nymph said, looking at Angel with a reassuring smile as they continued to dance around the figure in the fountain, Paige only slightly slower than the others. "He has the flute-"

"And what does that prove?" Angel asked, looking grimly at the nymph; he'd done his best to tolerate their earlier actions, but when they were about to dive in and accept a stranger when they were potentially still in danger he felt that he was entitled to be frustrated even if Paige's life wasn't at stake. "In case you forgot, you're being hunted by a demon who already killed your original satyr; this isn't the time to blindly accept someone who shows up playing a flute!"

"You _dare_ to doubt me-?" the individual- Angel was becoming increasingly convinced that he wasn't looking at the new satyr- said, looking indignantly at Angel.

"Yeah, I _dare_ ," Angel said, glaring back at the creature as he walked up to stand beside Paige, who had stopped dancing to look questioningly at the individual even as the other nymphs continued dancing at a slightly slower pace. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Take me to the spring, and I will-" the creature said.

"You'll what?" Angel asked. "The last time I checked, satyrs were creatures of peace; you're pretty much defenceless, so there's nothing you can do to threaten me… unless you're _not_ a satyr at all!"

Looking at Angel, the creature stammered for a moment in a pitifully obvious attempt at false protest, until his expression became more malevolent as he raised one hand and launched a burst of fire at Angel. Ducking to the side with Paige in his arms, Angel lunged for the demon as the satyr's flute vanished from his opponent's hands in a burst of light that indicated Paige orbing it to safety. Before the demon could launch another burst of fire, Angel had forced him into the fountain and under the water, twisting the demon's neck so quickly that he couldn't get his hands out of the water to attack again.

"Huh," Paige said, prompting Angel to look at her, now returned to her original appearance. "That was quick."

"He wasn't expecting me to be here," Angel said, standing up as he looked grimly at the demon corpse below him, already collapsing into ash as the water mitigated the usual fire of a successful vanquish. "Sometimes, luck plays a part."

"You… you _killed_ him?" the blonde nymph said, looking at Angel in obvious shock. "You _killed_ the satyr-"

"Once again, that _wasn't_ your satyr; that was the demon that was trying to kill you," Angel said grimly, walking over to wrap his arm around Paige again as he glared at the nymphs, wanting to ensure that they didn't try and transform Paige against her will for a second time. "Tradition is important to you, and I get that, but you can't let yourself be blinded by it; you transformed an innocent woman into something else against her will and went on to reach a point where you almost put everything you stand for in danger because you couldn't think outside of the box."

"Yeah," Paige said, nodding in agreement of her boyfriend's assessment as she looked at the nymphs. "I mean, I can appreciate you wanting to give me a chance to take a time out, but I didn't _need_ it; I just needed a bit more time with Angel, not to be turned into something else."

"Well…" the brunette nymph said, looking uncertainly at her sister before she looked back at Angel and Paige. "We just… we've never done this…"

"Hey, just because something's always been that way doesn't mean that's the way it always has to be," Paige said, as she walked up to stand between the nymphs, looking at them with a reassuring smile. "Look at Angel; he's a vampire who should be interested in people only as a source of food, but he spends every day fighting what he's naturally inclined to be to help people, aiding my sisters and me in stopping threats to life and nature like the rest of the world couldn't imagine even existed, being a man when nobody could blame him for remaining a monster…"

She trailed off as she noticed Angel looking slightly uncomfortable and the nymphs just looking confused, Paige shaking her head before she continued speaking. "My point is, Angel took a chance and went outside the rules to be more than what he was; why can't you do the same thing?"

"We've… never imagined another way," the blonde nymph said, even as the thoughtful expression on her face showed that she was at least willing to consider it.

"Well, change is good," Paige said, looking encouragingly at the nymphs. "Try it."

* * *

  
"So you're sure you got the other demon?" Paige asked, as she sat opposite Piper at the kitchen table later on that night. Angel had gone out to check in with Doyle and Wesley on the progress of their own case, and Leo was watching Wyatt while Phoebe went to talk with Jason about the now-inactive nymphs, leaving the oldest and youngest sister to have their own conversation.

"We tried to search for the nymphs and ended up finding a demon ranting about his brother running off; it fit, and the fight was straightforward enough," Piper said, shrugging slightly as she looked at her sister before she assumed a more serious expression. "Look, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about earlier; I get that you're trying to help, and I need to just learn to stand back and let you do your thing. You've got your own approach to things, but you've also been spending a lot of time with Angel; he's taught you a lot, you've picked up a lot…"

"You're going to give me a break on changing things?" Paige asked, smiling hopefully at Piper, clearly glad to have that particular conversation dealt with.

"I'm saying… I recognise your input, and get that we can't just expect the old ways to work out like they did before; if nothing else, we're a lot more… official now," Piper said, looking apologetically at Paige. "I've already had to adapt because Prue wasn't there, I was taking over as the oldest, we ended up working with Angel on a regular basis…"

She shrugged. "I get that I've been doing it because I was used to doing it, but I should have given you more of a chance; you're never going to grow as a witch or a person if I don't let you."

"Goes for both of us," Paige said, looking firmly at her oldest sister. "We both need to keep it up with the witchcraft, but we shouldn't focus on it; you've got Leo and Wyatt, I've got Angel…"

"That… actually brings something up," Piper said, looking at Paige with sudden uncertainty. "I mean, all that stuff Leo said about Angel helping you resist the nymphs because he's technically dead, that's going to-"

"I've accepted that," Paige said, not wanting Piper to actually voice that issue; she was accepting that she and Angel would never have children, but that didn't meant that she liked it being drawn to her attention any more than she needed to be made aware of it.

No matter what other burdens they faced and overcame, that one would always be there…

"Anyway," Paige said smiling at Piper to turn the conversation to other matters, "on a more positive note, if things remain calm, how about Angel and I keep an eye on Wyatt tonight while you and Leo spend some time together as people rather than parents?"

There might still be some areas of their relationship that they needed to work on to get things to a point where they were totally comfortable with their relevant styles, but Paige and Piper were both confident that they'd get there soon enough.

Sisterly dynamics were never straightforward to work out- and the fact that they were starting this bond so relatively late in life had just made it more complicated-, but moments like these gave Piper and Paige both faith that they were working it out, regardless of what other factors were taking up their time.


	43. Murder in Your Sleep

If there was one thing that Darryl liked about the Halliwells' branching out into the private investigator business, it was the fact that it was so much easier to make contact with them about the particularly anomalous cases these days. It had taken him a long time to stop the rumours of the 'freaky-deaky' rap he'd practically inherited the full weight of after Andy's death, and bringing in psychics wouldn't have helped him shake off that particular image, but bringing in private detectives was something that other cops could understand even if they wouldn't always approve; sometimes, even the non-magic cases needed someone who operated outside the law.

Admittedly, he was still a bit uncomfortable around Angel- putting aside the fact that the guy had gone evil last year, no matter how much everyone assured him that he wouldn't do that again, Darryl wasn't sure he'd ever feel comfortable about the idea of working with an actual _vampire_ -, but he had to admit that the guy knew his stuff. For a relative amateur who'd only gotten into this game a few months ago, Angel had managed to turn up some interesting insights into more traditional cases as well as helping the Halliwells deal with their usual enemies; even if some of his skills came from the part of his life Darryl _really_ didn't like to think about, he still had some interesting insights to offer.

Besides, if this case was what it looked like, he had a feeling Angel would be the best person to close it…

"Hey, Darryl!" Paige said as he walked into the office, smiling warmly at him as she got up from her desk and walked over to give him a hug. "How're you doing?"

"Been worse," Darryl said, his grim tone prompting a more depressed expression to appear on Paige's face.

"Which means that you've got something that you think fits our usual M.O.?" she asked him.

"Could be nothing, but the similarities are enough to make me want to be sure," Darryl said, walking over to sit down at the other side of Paige's desk. "Where's everyone else?"

"Well, Angel's training downstairs, Doyle's out with Phoebe looking for a new apartment- he says Angel talked him into it at last, but I think he just gave in now because Phoebe offered to help out-, and Wesley's running down some new books for his collection," Paige replied- she knew that Darryl was mainly asking about the other agency employees, considering the more brisk, professional nature of the query-, shrugging apologetically at him. "Sorry I can't offer anything more…"

"Don't worry about it; I'd prefer to run these by you first before I tell anyone else," Darryl said, pulling the folder he'd taken from the station out of his bag and putting it on the desk, turning it to face Paige. "Take a look."

As Paige opened the folder, it didn't take long for her to realise why Darryl had come to them with this case; three bodies, each one with rather distinctive bite marks on their necks and a crucifix carved into their left cheeks, completely drained of blood.

"You're thinking vampire, huh?" she said, looking at Darryl with a grim expression.

"Fact that he's being so public about it definitely doesn't help," Darryl said; after everything he'd learned, he wasn't naïve enough to believe that Angel was the only vampire in the city- he'd heard enough about Angel and Paige's patrols to know that there was a not-insubstantial population of the undead out there, even if they were smart enough to keep it quiet-ish-, but when a vampire kill this obvious came across his desk he felt that he was entitled to take a personal interest in it. "I wasn't sure at first, but when three different people turned up dead in the same way… well, that's enough to make a pattern worth watching to me."

"Me too," Paige said, before she looked apologetically at Darryl. "Uh… you know that the whole 'vampire' thing makes it a bit hard for anyone to arrest him even if we catch him…?"

"Just get him off the streets, and I can work with that," Darryl said, nodding appreciatively at Paige.

He might not be able to actively do much against a supernatural threat, but what he could do was make it easier for the better qualified hunters to keep the city safe; anything more than that was out of his hands.

* * *

  
After Darryl had left the office, Paige set to work going over the files he'd given her, but it didn't take long to realise that there wasn't actually much in them that she could use. The murder victims all had crucifixes carved into their cheeks and were totally drained of blood, but those details aside everything in the files seemed fairly standard. The victims reflected a broad range of social groups, ranging from an older man to a younger woman and a young girl, in different parts of town with different backgrounds; there was definitely something motivating the choice of victims, considering how the vampire was going to the effort of marking them rather than just grabbing a snack- they might be demons, but there was always something fundamentally human about the vampires' M.O. when it came to choosing victims-, but there was nothing to indicate what that could be…

"Hey," Angel's voice said, Paige looking up at her boss/boyfriend only to find herself looking in shock at how fatigued he seemed. "Everything OK?"

"Just… Darryl left us something odd," Paige said, holding up the files with a slight sigh. "Rather distinctive vampire kills; guy drains the victims' blood and carves a cross into their cheeks, but otherwise doesn't seem to have any common denominator in his victims, crossing all kinds of age and racial brackets…"

"Oh," Angel said, looking over the files for a moment before his eyes widened in shock, evidently disturbed at something he'd seen.

"What?" Paige asked, looking curiously at her boyfriend. "Something wrong?"

"I…" Angel began, looking between the photographs in the file and Paige for a moment, before he took a deep breath and finished his sentence. "I think I did this."

" _What_?" Paige said, standing up from her desk to look at him in shock. " _You_ did this?"

"I've been…" Angel began, looking awkwardly at her as he continued to speak. "I've been… dreaming about these victims for a while now; I thought they were just dreams, but when I saw these photos, the people in them… it all came back… how I stalked them, toyed with them…"

"And carved a cross in their cheeks?" Paige said sceptically.

"The cross is something I used to do as Angelus," Angel explained awkwardly. "Darryl's notes suggest that it's about this guy thinking he's doing God's work- eliminating sinners or something-, but I always intended for it to be mocking God rather than honouring him…"

"OK, that's… twisted, but does that mean you're… sleep-killing?" Paige asked, looking uncertainly at her boyfriend; she believed that he wasn't doing this consciously, but her experience with vampires still wasn't exactly detailed enough for her to feel comfortable even with only a hint that he might be involved in this, no matter how much she trusted him. "I mean, you've been dealing with Angelus in the back of your head for almost a century-"

"But the curse has changed since then," Angel pointed out, looking solemnly at her. "Maybe the fact that he knows he can get out is helping Angelus… influence me."

"OK," Paige said, looking at Angel with renewed scepticism; Angel had never expressed doubt in the new curse they'd cast before now. "I get that you're having nightmares, but-"

"They're not nightmares," Angel said, looking at her with a slight edge of fear about his manner. "I've enjoyed them."

"Oh," Paige said, stuck for anything else to say to that revelation before she decided to move on to the most relevant part of the situation facing them; Angel was a vampire, so it was only natural that _some_ part of him would enjoy those memories even if he didn't want to. "So… you think you're committing these murders in your sleep?"

Before Angel could reply, she held up one hand to halt him as she glanced over the files in front of her before looking back at him, sighing in frustration as her temporary hope died before it could develop further. "Timing works out, unfortunately; every time one of these happened, we weren't spending the night together, and they took place in the pre-dawn hours when you normally try and catch some zzzs to fit in with the rest of us…"

"There's only one way to be sure," Angel said, looking grimly at her.

"Right," Paige said, reaching over to pick up the phone and dialling the manor's number, smiling slightly when Piper answered. "Hey, sorry to bother you so suddenly, but we need some help over here; I need to put Angel on lockdown for the night."

" _What_?" Piper said, clearly confused at the request. " _What do you mean_?"

"Long story short, there's a vampire killing people in the area and Angel thinks he might be doing it in his sleep," Paige said grimly. "Get chains and binding spells together and get over here ASAP; if that curse needs re-casting, I'd rather know now instead of later."

It might be direct, but they weren't going to get anywhere by beating about the bush; if one of them was committing crimes without consciously knowing about it, they had to focus on preventing further crimes before trying to stop them for good.

* * *

  
As she tightened the last of the shackles they'd put together to keep Angel tied to the bed- most of them had been acquired from Angel's own arsenal, but they'd managed to dig up a few enchanted chains from the manor's basement that one of their ancestors had apparently enchanted for this kind of situation. Doyle had been called in to provide additional protection, but they had decided not to contact Wesley; considering his continued ignorance of Angel's vampire status, it was widely agreed that this wouldn't be the best time to reveal the truth to him (Paige sometimes wondered just how much Wesley knew- he had seen Angel throw that nitrogen tank, after all, even if he hadn't asked about it and they'd been prepared to say that one of them had enchanted it to make it lighter-, but as long as he didn't bring it up, they weren't going to do so either).

"You've got to make it tight," Leo said, as they adjusted the shackles around Angel/s wrists.

"Yeah, can you _not_ talk about this too much?" Piper said, looking anxiously at Leo. "I'd rather not think about the fact that I'm helping to tie up my baby sister's boyfriend…"

"For the record," Angel said, wincing slightly at the weight of the chains holding him down, "I think that's tight enough."

"Better safe than sorry," Phoebe pointed out, glaring briefly at the vampire before she sighed and stepped back. "Well, all we can do is wait."

"So… what now?" Doyle asked, stepping back to look uncertainly at his friend. "We hang around and wait?"

"Yeah, no offence, but I'm not that keen on hanging around to watch while the vampire who may be having a relapse tries to have a snack," Phoebe said with a pointed stare as she stood up. "I'm off; sleep tight."

"That's pretty much a given," Angel said, glancing down at the chains surrounding him.

"OK," Paige said, exchanging glances with her sisters- her brief but firm stare ensuring that Phoebe understood she wasn't to leave just yet-, before nodding in resolution. "I'll stay in the room overnight, and Doyle will wait outside; if… anything happens… we'll let you know."

"You're sure?" Phoebe asked, looking uncertainly at Paige.

"I'm sure," Paige said, reaching over to pick up a crossbow as she sat down in a chair at the end of Angel's bed. "See you in the morning."

* * *

  
Paige had been grateful for Angel's training for a number of reasons over the last year or so since she'd learned that she was a witch, but the idea that she'd ever be grateful for it because it helped her stay awake on guard duty hadn't been one that she'd ever have expected to come up (Most of the threats they faced tended not to be the kind of bad guy you could lock up- either they'd shimmer out or they'd just break the cage-, and magical prisons weren't something they'd ever really bothered looking into).

As it was, she might be tired at how long she'd had to stay awake lately, but she was nevertheless reasonably alert and had only dozed off a few times during her guard duty, none of which had lasted longer than a few moments and would definitely not have been enough time for Angel to do anything in his current state.

"OK," Phoebe said, walking into the room and looking between Paige and Angel, a newspaper in her hands and a grim expression on her face, "we have news; there's been another murder last night."

"So, that sucks, but on the bright side, at least we know that Angel didn't do it," Piper said as she walked in behind Phoebe, Doyle and Leo close behind her, a quick glance all they needed to confirm that Angel's chains were still secure and undisturbed. "So, all we need to do is work out who it is-"

"I know who it is," Angel said suddenly.

"Eh?" Phoebe said, looking at him in confusion.

"His name's Penn," Angel said grimly. "I sired him over two centuries ago."

* * *

  
"OK," Piper said, as the six of them sat around the office a short while later, the sisters processing the story that Angel had just told them. "So, you're saying that the killer we're dealing with is… Angelus's old protégé?"

"How come you never mentioned him before?" Phoebe asked. "I mean, you told us about Spike and Dru-"

"Penn was more of a… private siring," Angel said. "I turned him while I was travelling on my own away from Darla for a while- he reminded Angelus of Liam at the time-, and he ended up being so… receptive… to what I had to teach him that, well…"

"You let him go off on his own because he was a standard vampire, but you kept Dru around for the visions and Spike stayed with you because of her?" Paige finished.

"Is that why you didn't mention him?" Leo asked. "You thought he was already dead?"

"I just... haven't seen him for so long I wasn't thinking about him, really," Angel said, shrugging in response to the Whitelighter's question before he turned his attention back to the photographs on the table in front of him. "At least that explains the pattern of these kills; appearances and background differ, but they're essentially all the same age as Penn's family was when he killed them shortly after he was turned."

"He's re-killing his family?" Doyle said sceptically. "Ain't that a bit… repetitive?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't he change his routine a bit?" Phoebe asked, agreeing with Doyle's query.

"Maybe he's trying to draw you out?" Paige suggested. "I mean, if you're dreaming about his kills-?"

"No," Angel said. "I used to have a connection with those I sired. It just means he's close, that's all."

"Why didn't you mention that before?" Piper asked.

"It wasn't relevant," Angel said. "Spike's one generation removed, so I wasn't linked to him, and Drusilla's mind was too chaotic for me to have any kind of in-depth link to her; I wasn't aware of them through the link, so I had no reason to bring it up."

"OK, so he's not doing this to draw you out, the dreams just indicate that he's in the same city as you, and the cops have little to no chance of stopping this guy on their own, so… what do we do now?" Piper asked.

"Darryl," Angel said as he stood up.

"Point," Paige said, getting up to join her boyfriend. "We have to let him know what we know so we can work something out; maybe he can come up with some way to translate Angel's knowledge of this guy into a context that the other cops can understand…"

"Are you sure that's safe?" Leo asked.

Angel had just opened his mouth to reply when Wesley walked into the office, pulled out a crossbow, and fired it at Angel's chest.


	44. Past Sins

As Wesley fired the crossbow at Angel, Paige was initially uncertain what to do- her automatic reaction was to reach for the crossbow bolt before it could reach its target, but stopping Wesley doing anything else was also important-, but the matter was quickly cleared up when Angel grabbed the arrow when it was right in front of his chest, leaving Paige and Phoebe to leap up from her seats and pin Wesley to the door by the arms before he could reload or assume a combat stance.

"What the _Hell_ , Wesley?" Paige said, looking indignantly at the Watcher, Piper automatically defaulting to Paige's own experience in this area as she focused on keeping Wesley's arm immobilised.

"He's Angelus!" Wesley yelled at the witch.

"Excuse me?" Piper said, looking at Wesley in surprise. "You _know_ about Angelus?"

" _You_ know about Angelus?" Wesley repeated in shock, clearly taken aback at her casual reaction to the name.

"We fought him last year, I'm pretty sure you can say that we know who the guy is," Phoebe said, glaring grimly at the ex-Watcher.

"You- you _know_?" Wesley said, looking at Phoebe incredulously before his gaze shifted back to Angel. "And you still-?"

"He's not Angelus _now_ , you idiot," Paige said, slapping Wesley in the back of the head. "He was cursed with his soul a century back and hasn't fed on anyone since then; he's working with us now to _make up_ for what he's done in the past, and he'd _never_ kill innocent people!"

She acknowledged that she was slightly exaggerating the quality of Angel's past history based on some of the things he'd told her over the course of their relationship, but she'd worry about that if it became an issue; right now, the facts were what mattered.

"The murders in the paper-" Wesley began, protesting in a manner that struck Paige as almost automatically.

"We already checked on that by tying Angel up last night and keeping an eye on him; he didn't even try to sit up in bed until he woke up an hour ago, never mind going out there and killing someone during the night," Piper said, looking firmly at Wesley even as the ex-Watcher practically visibly deflated in front of them, his attempt to be the big hero cut short as his theory was proven wrong.

"What made you think it was Angel, anyway?" Doyle asked, his question relatively casual even as his pointed stare made it clear he wasn't going to forget what Wesley had just done any time soon. "I mean, the bit in the paper might make ye think o' Angelus if you'd read about 'im, but what made you think he was Angel apart from the name?"

"Well…" Wesley said, looking awkwardly at the group standing around him even as they relaxed their grip once it was clear he wasn't going to continue trying to shoot Angel, "to be perfectly honest, I've had some suspicions about Angel ever since he was able to throw that canister of liquid nitrogen around so easily- adrenaline, spell or any other explanation I came up with to explain his strength, his aim was too precise to be human-, and then there was the fact that I've never seen him in direct sunlight since I've known him…"

"Along with a few other little details that don't add up but don't matter unless you know what they might mean, huh?" Phoebe said, shrugging as she looked at Wesley, a more sympathetic expression now on her face. "Trust me, we had our fair share of those in the past; the important thing now is that you're clear on the fact that we _will_ hurt you if you try to attack Angel again."

"Of… of course," Wesley said, nodding uncertainly before a harsher expression crossed his face. "Of course, this would never have happened if you had just-"

"It wasn't that we didn't trust you…" Paige said, before she shook her head. "OK, _initially_ it was because we didn't entirely trust you- you were a new face in what's generally been a family thing only, after all-, but then we got to know you, and…"

"We just wanted to give you time to get to know Angel as _Angel_ before we told you that he was a vampire, and the right opportunity to tell you never came up," Leo said, shrugging slightly apologetically at the other man as he finished Paige's explanation for her. "I know he's… done things… in the past that probably make you reluctant to trust him, but I promise, he's nothing like that now; everything he does is about atoning for Angelus's actions."

"I… see," Wesley said, looking thoughtfully at Angel for a while before he spoke again. "You were truly cursed with your soul?"

"Yes," Angel said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at Wesley. "You worked out enough about me to know who I am, but you didn't think about why Angelus's records stopped at the beginning of last century?"

"I… well, I was planning on… asking you about that… if the opportunity arose…" Wesley began awkwardly.

"For you to capture me?" Angel said, smiling briefly at the thought, before his eyes narrowed sharply. "Wait a minute; do the Council-?"

"I was planning on asking them for help if I couldn't stop you- well, Angelus- on my own; right now they wouldn't take my calls unless I had something useful to offer them, so I saw no reason to waste time," Wesley said.

"OK, so now that we've talked about _that_ awkward situation for a bit, can we get over to Darryl now?" Paige asked, looking pointedly at her friends. "I don't know about you, but the sooner he knows what we're up against right now, the better."

"What _are_ we up against?" Wesley asked, looking at them with a slightly hopeful expression.

"Some old protégé of Angelus's; we'll fill you in later," Paige said briefly.

She got that the ex-Watcher had thought he was doing the right thing, but just because she had more immediate issues to deal with than a new guy who'd chosen the wrong way to try and 'prove' himself to them, or whatever weird reasoning he'd used to justify what he'd tried to do, that didn't mean she was going to completely ignore the fact that he'd tried to kill her boyfriend…

* * *

  
"OK," Darryl said, looking uncertainly at Paige and Angel as they stood in a briefing room in the station, the posters of Penn's latest victims on the wall behind him, "what have you got for me?"

"The name, face, and motivation of the vampire you're dealing with," Paige said firmly.

"Really?" Darryl said, eyes widening and a smile briefly crossing his face before suspicion dominated it. "And how do you know that?"

"Because I'm the vampire who sired him back in the day," Angel said.

" _You_ -?" Darryl began, his expression shifting to a harsher glare.

"It wasn't _Angel_ , Darryl," Paige interrupted, stepping between the detective and the vampire to look firmly at the other man. "We told you all this earlier; he didn't have a _soul_ when he did all that stuff-"

"Yeah, and when's that excuse not going to be enough?" Darryl said, looking pointedly at the vampire. "Don't get me wrong, I get that you weren't yourself, but it's not like you were possessed or something-"

"Look," Angel said, holding up his hands defensively as he looked at the cop, "if you've got a problem with me, can we talk about this _after_ the immediate threat's off the streets?"

Darryl simply stared at the other man in silence for a moment before he nodded, the glare in his eyes making it clear that this discussion wasn't over while the nod demonstrated his concession to Angel's assessment of the situation.

"Thanks," Angel said, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a quick sketch he'd made of Penn; he'd focused on Penn's face and shoulders and only put him in a nondescript shirt, given that he didn't really know how the other man dressed these days, but something about the dreams he'd experienced left him fairly sure he'd got the essentials of the hairstyle correct. "This is the guy; his name is Penn, and he's targeting his victims in an attempt to recreate the murders of his family."

"Charming," Darryl said grimly, even as he took the picture from Angel nevertheless, looking it over before he looked back at Angel. "So, what can you tell me about this guy's next target?"

"His next victim will be a white male, adolescent," Angel explained. "He'll take him off the streets in a low rent neighbourhood, probably near a bar or liquor store, and he'll kill him just like he did these others, unless you use every resource this department has to make sure he's not successful this time."

"That's gonna take a lot of manpower-" Darryl began.

"I think I can track him, but you need to get enough of a presence out there that he doesn't have as many options as he would normally," Angel said, looking over at the other man. "You've got our number; call us the _second_ you think you've got something."

"This guy's that dangerous?" Darryl said, looking grimly at Angel.

"He can be," Angel confirmed.

Darryl only nodded at Angel in response before walking out of the room, but the grim expression on Darryl's face was enough to reassure Angel that the other man would take Angel's warnings seriously.

He just hoped that would be enough…

* * *

  
"Remind me again why we can't just scry for this guy?" Piper asked as she sat impatiently in her car alongside her sisters, Leo and Angel, parked a short distance from one of the locations Darryl had identified as a possible site for Penn's next abduction. They all acknowledged that the odds against them specifically identifying the right liquor store from Darryl's list was slim, but they had taken a chance to pick out the most likely target from the list based on Angel's memories of Penn's tastes, and they'd have to hope that would be enough.

"Because he's so close to Angel in the vampire family tree that any attempt to scry would get confused and probably pick up Angel first given his greater age; it's not like we have anything that's uniquely Penn's," Paige said.

"She's right," Angel said, a slightly apologetic tone to his voice as though he was ashamed at his perceived role in Penn's presence (That was something Piper had a feeling Paige would definitely have to talk with him about). "We've got a chance to find him now; let's focus on that."

"Yeah…" Piper sighed, shaking her head in frustration as she turned her attention back to the quiet streets before her. "Guess I'm just getting spoiled by being able to look for everything with magic…"

"Well, that's why we're here, Piper," Paige said, smiling over at her sister. "If we're going to do the detective thing properly-"

Paige's speech was cut off when the radio that Darryl had given them in the event of this kind of situation coming up suddenly turned on.

" _You there_?" Darryl's voice said.

"We're here," Phoebe said, grabbing the radio urgently. "Where are you?"

" _Suspect picked up a kid outside a liquor store and got spotted by a couple of our guys_ ," Darryl said, quickly citing the address before continuing. " _We're in pursuit, but I have a feeling we're going to need some back-up; can you get here_?"

"Paige and I are on our way," Angel said, taking the radio from Phoebe before terminating the call and looking over at the youngest Halliwell. "You know where we're going?"

"Got it," Paige said with a grim expression, Phoebe and Piper nodding as well.

"OK," Angel said, turning to look at the other three, "the rest of you follow on and get to the scene as soon as possible; Darryl's men know what they're doing, but extra eyes can't hurt."

"On it," Piper said, as Paige took hold of Angel's shoulder and the two of them orbed away, leaving Piper to turn the car on and start driving towards the location.

* * *

  
As Angel reappeared from the whiteness of orbing, it didn't take him long to identify his old protégé; the man currently facing Darryl- their cop ally was lying on the ground and a scent in the air that suggested he'd tried to shoot his opponent earlier- had shorter hair and was dressed in a far more casual manner than Angel had ever seen him in before, just wearing a red top under a dark jacket, but the face was still easily recognisable as Penn.

"Hello, Penn," Angel said, releasing his hold on Paige's hand as he looked at Penn in a casual manner, tapping into his Angelus memories to project a casual indifference to the current situation. On the bright side, they appeared to be in an abandoned building judging by the lack of furniture and the wear and tear in the walls around them, and he could actually see an open hatch that seemed to lead to the sewers judging by the smell; if they were this off the track, it might take other cops a while to get there.

"Angelus?" Penn said, turning to look at the source of the voice, smiling in satisfaction at the sight. "Angelus!"

As Paige stepped back, Penn walked up to the older vampire with a broad grin, clasping his arms enthusiastically. "My God, it's been a lifetime!"

"At least," Angel replied, in the neutral tone Paige had come to think of as his default tone when dealing with demons who didn't know his current allegiance.

"We were to meet in Italy, remember?" Penn said, smiling as he looked at the older vampire in satisfaction.

"I remember," Angel confirmed; Angelus and Penn had been planning to catch up on old times- as well as naturally claim a few victims- before Angelus had been cursed with his soul.

"Well, I waited," Penn said, actually sounding slightly hurt as he looked at his old mentor. "I waited until the nineteenth century. What happened?"

"Got held up in Romania," Angel said.

"Romania," Penn repeated. "What's in Romania?"

"Gypsies," Angel said, as Darryl pulled out his radio and began to call for back-up; whether he actually thought it would make a difference or was just wanting to feel like he was doing something, Angel wasn't sure, but anything that helped to limit Penn's chance to escape was good.

"Well, we're both here now," Penn said, indicating Darryl with a smile. "Join me for a drink?"

"That's not why I'm here," Angel said, looking firmly at Penn.

"So why are you here?" Penn asked, turning to look back at Angel as Darryl spoke into the radio, before his gaze shifted to Paige as she moved out from behind Angel. "And what's with the woman?"

"What else?" Paige said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her stake, flipping it in her hand as she glared at the vampire. "We're here to kill you."

"What?" Penn said, looking between Angel and Paige in confusion. "You're working with these-?"

Penn was interrupted when Angel vamped out and launched a punch at his face, the other vampire's immediate attempt to throw Angel away backfiring when Angel maintained a tight enough grip on his opponent to haul Penn along for the 'ride'. As soon as they hit the ground, Angel rolled backwards to get back on to his feet while Penn just scrambled back up, only for Penn's subsequent kick to send Angel back to the ground.

"What is this?" Penn asked, as he positioned himself on top of Angel, keeping his mentor trapped. "You don't want a drink, so nobody else gets to either?"

"This has to end, Penn," Angel said, glaring at his former protégé defiantly despite his currently disadvantaged position.

"Oh, how does that work exactly?" Penn asked. "You just wake up one morning and decide, 'OK, now I'm good'?"

"Bit more involved than that, you bastard," Paige said, tightening her grip on the stake as Darryl looked at the two vampires pinned before them; they might be able to hurt Penn, but after the fight Angelus had given her Paige had her doubts about her ability to hold her own in a fight against his direct protégé…

"You know what?" Penn said, looking at Angel as he drew back one fist. "Never mind; don't care."

As soon as the punch had started to hurtle towards him, Angel reached up and grabbed Penn's outstretched arm, hurling the arm and the vampire it was attached to over his head to hit the ground, allowing Angel to get back to his feet once again as he looked at his foe.

"This has to end," Angel said grimly, Penn retaining that frustrating smirk on his face as he got back up.

"It doesn't end, Angelus," Penn said, laughing mockingly at his one-time mentor. "It never, ever ends. It just goes on and on…"

"It's not the only thing," Angel said, lashing out with another punch to Penn's face, only for Penn's own counter-attack to knock Angel off-balance and send him crashing into a nearby support beam.

"Living among them has made you _weak_!" Penn said, glaring at Angel as he walked up to the other vampire. "It sickens me-"

With his attention focused on Angel, Paige held out one hand and orbed the stake she was holding straight through Penn's heart, watching in satisfaction as the arrogant vampire collapsed to the ground in a cloud of dust before he had time to say anything else.

"Well, a lot of things sicken us; no reason to go on about it," Paige said, glaring at the pile of ash before looking back at Angel. "You all right?"

"Been better," Angel said with a shrug as he smiled at her reassuringly. "Still, I've also felt worse."

As the sound of additional footsteps reached their ears, Darryl turned around and fired a rapid series of bullets towards a nearby hole in the wall, before he turned to look at the other two.

"Get out of here!" their cop ally practically hissed, loud enough for the other two to hear him without it being heard by the approaching cops. "I'll say the guy got away through the sewers!"

"Good call," Angel said, grabbing Paige's arm and looking urgently at her even as he nodded in understanding at Darryl. As Paige nodded in understanding, she orbed out of the building…

* * *

  
"Back already?" Phoebe said in surprise as her youngest sister and Angel reappeared in the car.

"One vamp against the three of us?" Paige said with a slight smile. "I know Darryl's not had much experience at dealing with that kind of demon, but do you really think any vamp would be _that_ difficult for all of us to stop?"

"You… have some practise in that area?" Wesley said, looking at Paige inquiringly. "Against vampires specifically, I mean…"

"I've been training with a vampire for the better part of the last two years; I think we can assume I've picked up a few tricks in my time," Paige said with a casual shrug before she turned her attention back to her sisters. "Anyway, Penn's dead, so that's all over."

"And," Angel added with a smile, "he happened to die in a room with sewer access, and we left after Darryl fired his gun when we heard the other cops approaching, so I'm hoping that we managed to create the impression that he shot Penn and the guy fell into the sewer before anyone could get there."

"Will that work?" Leo asked.

"It was a big hole in an unused house over a sewer entrance; it's not like it would be impossible for Darryl to shoot the guy in self-defence and have him fall into it before anyone else got there," Paige said with a shrug. "Bit of a stretch, but it's plausible, and that's what matters right now."

"Amen to that," Phoebe said with a smile. "Nothing wrong with things getting wrapped up nicely, after all."

* * *

  
Paige almost wished that she could be surprised to find Angel sitting up on the rooftop the next night, silently staring out at the city as it was spread out before them, his expression grim and his whole body language suggesting at a series of grim thoughts that he shouldn't be having after their last victory.

"Hey," she said, walking up to her boyfriend taking up position alongside him with a casual smile, only for the smile to become a more solemn expression as she took in Angel's expression. "You're _still_ brooding about Penn?"

"He might have been a hack with a big ego and no imagination compared to some of the things we've faced, but he was still only a danger to anyone because of me," Angel said, sighing slightly. "And then there were those dreams…"

"They weren't _you_ , Angel," Paige said firmly. "Angelus is in you, but he's not _you_ , OK? Not any more."

"Do people ever change?" Angel said, looking back at her.

"Eh?" Paige said, looking at him in confusion.

"I look out at this city, and… it's not so different from where I grew up," Angel said. "People moving through their lives, making mistakes, trying to connect… technology makes it faster, but does anything ever change?"

"You did," Paige said, looking firmly at Angel. "After everything you've been through, you couldn't _not_ change; do you really think I'd even _think_ about touching you if I thought you were Angelus?"

"He's still in me, Paige," Angel said grimly as he looked back at her. "You locked him up, but he'll always be there…"

"We all have the potential, Angel," Paige said, still looking firmly at him, needing the vampire to see her faith in him. "You're not perfect, but you're not a monster either; you're just Angel, and that's all that matters."

"Is it?" Angel asked. "He's still in me..."

"Like I said, we all have that kind of potential, Angel," Paige said, looking reassuringly at him. "Yours is a bit more... obvious... but that doesn't mean it's going to define you forever; you have control, and we have faith in you to never abandon that control."

As he stared at Paige, Angel smiled gratefully at her before reaching over to take her in his arms and give her a soft kiss.

"You're perfect, you know that?" he said, grinning at her.

"I try," Paige said with a shrug, joining Angel as they looked out onto the city that they had dedicated themselves to protecting.

They might falter sometimes, but so long as they had each other to come back to, they'd always find their way back eventually.


	45. Unfamiliar Families

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter than usual, but it begins an original storyline for this series; a key character was taken from the Buffy/Angel crossover novel "Monster Island", but the situation is all my own work

Sitting in P3 alongside Phoebe, Doyle wished that he could be a bit calmer about this whole situation.

He might have finally had the chance to go out for a drink with Phoebe- albeit by suggesting that they try to have a night away from the rest, considering that Angel and Paige were training, Piper and Leo were having a 'date night', and Wesley was cataloguing the agency library-, but once he actually got out there, he realised that it was hard to think of a safe conversation topic that wouldn't bring up his past too soon. Discussing his family beyond Harry would only raise questions about how he'd fallen from what he'd been back then to what he was now, he wasn't exactly proud of what he'd become since his marriage fell apart before he'd been directed to Angel, and he'd picked up enough about her background to know that she might not appreciate any questions being asked about that…

"So," he said, as a topic of conversation finally came to him after the awkward silence they'd been sitting in since they'd arrived, "how's the job coming along?"

"Great," Phoebe said, smiling thankfully at him. "I never knew it could be so fulfilling having other peoples' problems given to me like this, but it's just… it's great to help someone without having to kill something, you know?"

"Yeah, that I can get behind," Doyle said with a slight smile. "Good to know we're helping people either way, but it's still nice not to have to beat something senseless to make our point."

He paused for a moment, uncertain about the best way to phrase this, before looking curiously at the witch. "So… how'd you get that job again?"

"In a nutshell?" Phoebe said with a smile; evidently work was a positive topic for her. "Went back to college after becoming a witch to build up my career opportunities outside of fighting demons, graduated with a BA in psychology after a year or two, ghost wrote my predecessor's column when she was out of action due to being possessed by a demonic power, and was nominated for the job when our innocent decided to take time off to spend time with her son after we saved her."

"All fell into place, eh?" Doyle said with a smile; considering his own challenges making money before he'd met Angel- gambling earned an erratic income, if you could even call it that-, he could appreciate how hard it was to find a job these days.

"Well, something had to after the employment-related problems I've had in the past, right?" Phoebe said, grinning warmly back at the Irish seer. "I mean, you have to admit, premonitions might be a rare power, but it doesn't really do much for helping us work out where to go with our own lives… not without pushing the personal gain rule, anyway."

"Hey, at least you get some control over the whole process; all I get is a bunch of headaches and a lot o'stuff about people in trouble that doesn't always make sense," Doyle said with a shrug. "Last I checked, your visions were always specific about what was up, and you don't have to see violent crap all the time; I sometimes just get the facts without why they're relevant."

"Yeah, but you _do_ get a bit more than I do," Phoebe said. "I mean, most of the time I have to rely on what I see and that's it; I've been picking up sound and feelings sometimes, but that's not that much help if I don't know where and when what I'm looking at happens. Haven't your visions always included names and locations most of the time?"

"I get some details, but I don't always get the _relevance_ of the details," Doyle corrected. "Remember that time I had the vision of that thing that was about to hatch in an apartment but got the room number wrong?"

"Hey, that was the fault of the building superintendent for not paying attention to the door numbers; it's not like _you_ gave them the wrong info," Phoebe pointed out with a brief smile, sighing in frustration. "Unlike when I didn't just kill Cole when I had the chance…"

"Uh…" Doyle said, feeling the need to defend the man he'd never really had the chance to know as well as avoid anything that made Phoebe think about that particular topic, "y'know, last I checked, the guy _was_ helpful at first…"

"OK, so he gave us some help on some tricky vanquishes; how much of that could have been done by us with more time?" Phoebe said, shrugging slightly as she looked at him, an obviously pained expression on her face at the memory. "I mean, I get that he was trying to help us at first, but maybe I should have just told him to leave us alone before it became so messed up rather than keep dating him; we tried to help a demon, and it just blew up in our faces."

"It's not like that was just the demon thing, y'know," Doyle said, feeling frustrated at his own sudden feelings of hypocrisy; after all the times he'd blamed _his_ demon for his failed marriage, now he was defending another guy for falling victim to the same problem?

"Yeah, maybe it wasn't directly responsible, but the fact is that it would have been a _lot_ easier if Cole was human," Phoebe said, shaking her head with a frustrated sigh.

 _If he was human_ …

That was what it all came down to, no matter how much Doyle tried to argue otherwise; everything that went wrong in her last serious relationship could be traced back to the fact that the guy wasn't human…

"Aw, nuts," Doyle said, slapping his hand against his pocket as though feeling something inside it. "Got to go; just got a call."

"You did?" Phoebe said, looking at him in confusion. "I didn't-"

"Set it to vibrate; didn't want the noise interruptin' us," Doyle said as he stood up, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket as he headed towards the door of the club. "Great talking to you!"

As soon as he was outside, he slumped against the wall and sighed in frustration, cursing his bad luck.

All that potential progress, and it fell apart because Phoebe had reminded Doyle of what had happened the last time she dated a demon; for all of Angel's attempts to help him, Cole hadn't been able to shake off the stigma of his powers, and had apparently ended up letting himself die just to undo the consequences of his last mistake.

It wasn't that Doyle thought that would happen to _him_ \- he wasn't capable of using Cole's kind of demonic powers, after all-, and he didn't blame Phoebe for her views, but how could he realistically begin a relationship with her on this kind of premise? The longer he spent not telling her about his demon side, the more awkward it would be when she learned the truth- that wasn't the kind of thing he could keep secret forever-, but would she ever give him a chance if she knew the truth?

God, life was easier when he didn't have to care about other people; living in dives and making a living through gambling debts might have sucked, but at least he didn't have to worry about what anyone else thought of him…

He wouldn't go back to the way he'd been, of course- life had been tolerable back then, but at least he could actually _live_ now, rather than just existing-, but it had been a hell of a lot easier when he wasn't so concerned about making a good impression on the first woman to make an impression on him since Harry.

He was _trying_ to get over his issues with his demon side, but it just wasn't that easy…

* * *

  
With Paige out following up on a lead for their latest case- a concerned father had called the agency to track down his daughter; potentially not their usual case, but it could hardly hurt to establish themselves outside the supernatural world- and Wesley picking up some new books for their collection, it was left to Angel to man the office in case they had any more conventional clients show up (As well as hoping that nobody would come in with something that needed someone to take action in sunlight).

Their attempts to advertise via conventional means might have been limited, but encouraging word of mouth was making some interesting progress; Darryl was sending them a few clients who might need help beyond what the conventional police force could provide, and even their occasional notices in the phone books were providing them new clients.

He just wished that their personal lives were going as well as their professional ones. Things were going fairly well between him and Paige, and Piper and Leo's marriage seemed fine, but Wesley's life was still all about the agency, and Doyle…

Angel sighed at the memory of his friend's earlier phone call when Doyle had rung to let him know that he wasn't coming in that day.

From what he'd heard, Doyle's attempted date with Phoebe the previous night had apparently gone horribly wrong when she'd started speculating about the possibility that Cole had been doomed from the beginning due to his demonic heritage, leaving Doyle to retreat out of a warped sense of guilt and shame. Phoebe apparently didn't suspect anything, but Doyle was left stuck in a rut, feeling guilty about his inability to tell the truth but not sure how to take the relationship further, and had requested the day off to think about it in private.

Angel just wasn't sure what he could do to help his friend deal with that particular situation; Piper still didn't know what Doyle really was, he wasn't sure if Leo and Wesley knew about Doyle's background, and asking Paige for advice could create a conflict of interest considering that she was the sister of the woman Doyle was interested in…

He might be making his relationship with Paige work, but that was partly because they'd been able to bond through their respective unusual backgrounds in the magical world; he knew that it presented some problems, but he just didn't know how to help Doyle relate to Phoebe outside their connection to magic…

"Hello," a deep voice said, prompting Angel to look up from his desk at the sound of a new client, only for his eyes to widen as he took in his visitor.

The male Brachen demon that had just entered the office created an imposing figure just standing there. His eyes were yellowed as opposed to the red Angel had seen Doyle assume when he transformed, and his teeth were jagged while his skin was a rich blue, to say nothing of him being at least a few inches taller than Angel. He was dressed in a long black leather coat, with dark trousers and a black shirt underneath, but something about the way he stood put Angel in mind of occasions where he'd seen soldiers out of uniform for the first time in a long time, uncomfortable in civilian attire due to lack of experience.

"Uh… hello," Angel said, stuck for anything else to say; most demons who came into his office looking like that generally just came for a fight, but the Brachen's lack of weapons and comparatively non-threatening stance gave Angel the impression that he had just come here presenting that kind of impression because he always gave off that kind of look.

"You are the one they called 'Angelus'?" the Brachen asked.

"It's Angel now," Angel responded, looking uncertainly at the Brachen; in his experience, people who still considered him Angelus meant trouble. "And… you are?"

"My name is Axtius," the other man said, looking solemnly at Angel. "Francis Doyle is my son."

Angel blinked.

This guy was Doyle's _father_?

"Is that name supposed-?" he began, falling back on denial; it was possible that the guy was just guessing-

"Do not insult my intelligence by pretending you do not know that name," Axtius said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at the vampire. "I am aware of your agency's… reputation… as well as the fact that Doyle works for you; I am not to be deterred that easily from making contact with my heir."

"Heir?" Angel repeated, allowing his expression to become harder as he stood up to glare at his current guest. "You show up here after over twenty years, and think that you can just… what, drop back into Doyle's life?"

"My life is my concern and what I have done in the past is not important; what is important is that I be allowed-" Axtius began to say.

"You walked out on my friend, left him to cope with a heritage that he had no reason to expect, and only show up again now; what did you think was going to happen when you got here?" Angel said, standing up and looking the demon in the eye; Axtius might be taller than him, but it wasn't such a significant difference that he couldn't glare at the guy. "You're not going to just get waved in with honour, you know."

"I am his _father_ -" the Brachen began.

"And the only reason I'm not going to kick you out right now is because I don't know what happened to make you leave," Angel said, relaxing his posture slightly even as he continued to glare at the other man; if the man hadn't done anything yet, he wasn't going to do something right now. "Maybe you had a good reason at the time, or maybe it's a load of crap, but that's for Doyle to decide."

"I… thank you," Axtius said, sounding like he was making an actual effort to voice that statement before he continued in a more normal tone. "When can I meet my son?"

"When I talk with him and he makes the decision," Angel said, looking firmly at Axtius before he softened slightly, looking at the other man in a more relaxed manner. "Where can we contact you?"

"I… am moving around a great deal at the moment; I cannot provide a direct address," Axtius replied, a slight edge to his tone that Angel didn't get but brushed aside; it was possible that the guy was just embarrassed about his lack of accommodation. "Could I not meet-?"

"P3," Angel said firmly.

"P3?" Axtius repeated.

"It's a club," Angel explained. "It's run by some… associates… of mine; you might need to cover up-"

"It is not for our kind," Axtius said, a neutral tone to his voice that again did little to express how he felt about that.

"Not publically, but the owner knows about us; she won't judge you for anything," Angel said; Piper might not be comfortable with demons, but she equally wasn't going to try and blow anything up if its only crime was not being human. "If Doyle wants to meet with you, we'll meet you there tomorrow night; anything else is up to him. Is that good enough for you?"

"It will… suffice," Axtius said, pausing for a moment before he closed his eyes and his appearance shifted, resulting in him assuming a human appearance, his hair only slightly peppered with grey as he looked solemnly at Angel. "I will assume this form for my first meeting with my son; I assume that you will recognise it?"

"I'll remember it," Angel said, nodding in acknowledgement at Axtius. "I'll tell him you came in when I next see him; anything after that is his choice."

"Good," Axtius said, before he turned around and walked out of the office. Angel noted a slightly defensive edge to his pace as he left the room, but decided not to think too much about that; maybe Axtius just didn't like the fact that things hadn't gone completely as planned in his first attempt to make contact with his son.

In a weird way, Angel had to admit that he was looking forward to what was coming up; considering Doyle's pre-existing family issues, maybe some time talking with his father would be good for him.

It might be hoping for too much, considering that this was the guy who'd abandoned Doyle's mother while she was pregnant, but it wasn't like Angel was contractually obligated to look for the negative side of things all the time; couldn't he hope for the best for his friend?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was never specified in "Monster Island" if Axtius was capable of taking on a human appearance or not, but considering that Doyle's mother never told him about his father until his Brachen side manifested because she thought there was a chance Doyle wouldn't be anything other than human, I'm assuming that Brachens can naturally disguise themselves and Axtius just never bothered to do so in the novel because of his current hatred for humanity.  
> To anyone who's read "Monster Island" and wonders why 'my' Axtius is being less hostile than his counterpart in the novel, keep in mind that Axtius had no reason to conceal his anger and disgust at Angel and his allies with Doyle lost to him for good in the novel; with Doyle still alive, he's going to be a bit more subtle…


	46. Quality Time as Father and Son

"His _father_?" Paige said, looking at Angel in surprise; she'd known that something urgent must have happened when Angel called her in the middle of the day when they already had a case, but this was one scenario she hadn't considered. "You really met Doyle's _dad_?"

"Well, he was a Brachen demon who specifically asked about Doyle and looks a bit like him in human form; add in the fact that he'd have no reason to lie about something like that and I think we can assume that he was telling the truth," Angel said, the two falling into silence as they thought about that particular news.

"So…" Paige said, shrugging awkwardly at him after a moment's silence, "I guess that shows how Doyle fits into this whole thing; another one with an awkward relationship with his dad."

"Try non-existent," Angel pointed out. "After all, Doyle told us this guy walked out on his mother before he was even born; at least your father stuck around until you were born, but from what Doyle told me, his father may not have even known his mother was pregnant when he left."

"Point," Paige said, nodding at him. "Actually, that might explain why it took him this long to come looking for Doyle; maybe he didn't know about him until Doyle set himself up somewhere long enough to make an impression?"

Angel had to admit that she made a good point- nothing Axtius had said gave the impression that he knew about Doyle when he left his mother-, but that raised a few uncomfortable possibilities; the idea that working with them might be the reason that Doyle's father had found him again wasn't entirely encouraging…

"We're telling him about this, right?" Paige asked.

"Wouldn't you want to know?" Angel replied.

The grim but resigned expression on Paige's face was the only confirmation Angel needed; regardless of how this situation might turn out, anything involving family had to be given a shot.

That was one of the things he liked about the Halliwells; unlike his own family when someone made a mistake, you gave them a chance to make it right, rather than just abandoning them when they wouldn't go along with what you wanted.

It could just get frustrating when they had to deal with the more complicated consequences of awkward familial reunions; they might have to give Axtius a chance to prove himself, but that didn't mean that it was going to be easy or comfortable talking to Doyle about this…

* * *

  
"Me dad?" Doyle said, looking at Angel in stunned incredulity after he arrived back in the office; Paige had left to give Angel the chance to talk to Doyle about this on his own, as well as making sure that the rest of the agency staff knew not to interrupt the two at a time like this. "You met me _dad_?"

"He looked like it, anyway," Angel said, shrugging slightly as he looked apologetically at Doyle; when he looked back on it, Axtius hadn't given him much evidence to confirm his story, but he had to work with the facts facing them. "I can't guarantee he was telling the truth, but at the same time he didn't have an immediate reason to lie; he was a Brachen demon who looked like he was the right age to be your father, and he did know who you are."

"Right…" Doyle said, looking awkwardly at the vampire before he spoke again. "Did he… say what he wanted?"

"Just to talk to you, as far as I could tell," Angel replied, shrugging slightly. "I said that he could talk to you at P3 later on tonight, but it's still your call in the end; if you don't want to meet him, I'll understand."

For a moment, Doyle simply sat and stared grimly at the vampire, a contemplative expression on his face until he sighed.

"Not goin' to get anywhere tryin' to deal with my issues unless I actually man up and try and do somethin' about it," he said, smiling slightly at the vampire. "If you could just… well…"

"Talk to Piper about it?" Angel said with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about it; I'll fill her in."

He might be trying to be optimistic about this meeting for Doyle's sake, but he could understand why his friend was so uncomfortable about this meeting; after so long since his father had dropped out of his life, it was natural that he'd want some time to prepare himself for it.

* * *

  
"So… Doyle's father's shown up and he's going to talk with Doyle at P3 tonight?" Piper said, looking at Angel in surprise, the vampire having dropped into P3 as she was preparing to open it that night; Paige had gone to keep an eye on Wyatt while Leo followed up a few reports on recent demonic activity in the city. "I mean, I get that it's a big deal for Doyle, don't get me wrong, but why do I _need_ to know about that?"

"Things with Doyle's father are… more complicated than you know," Angel said, shrugging out of a lack of any better way to describe the current situation without revealing things that it wasn't his right to disclose. "He might want to talk, but considering that he walked out on Doyle's mother when she was pregnant, I thought it might be best to have them chatting somewhere where he couldn't… do anything to Doyle."

"Do anything to Doyle?" Piper repeated, looking at Angel in new anxiety. "Is… that a possibility?"

"I don't know," Angel said, even as he smiled at Piper's subtly-expressed concern for Doyle; naming her son after Doyle had been a nice gesture, but it was always good to have other examples of how the Halliwells cared about Doyle as more than just the guy who had visions. "I didn't exactly have the chance to ask him about his past- and he didn't strike me as the type of guy to share that kind of information anyway-, but we're talking about the guy who just walked out on Doyle's mother for no known reason and gives off the bearing of a soldier; when I don't know enough about this guy's background, I'm not going to take any chances with my friend's safety."

For a moment, Piper simply stood and looked contemplatively at the vampire, lost in thought, before she stepped back and nodded.

"Just…" she said, looking uncertainly at the vampire, "however this turns out, don't let this guy… _do_ anything to the club, OK?"

"He won't," Angel said, nodding firmly at Piper.

He was fairly sure that, whatever else Axtius was here for, he wasn't here to start a fight; the man carried himself like a soldier, but it was only in the sense that he demonstrated the soldier's inability to relax rather than carrying himself in preparation for a fight.

The question of what he _was_ here for guaranteed that this meeting was going to be difficult no matter how it turned out, but at least it was almost all arranged now…

* * *

  
Sitting in P3 on his own, Doyle was amazed at how uncomfortable he was at this whole experience. He'd been going to bars on his own for some time before he was 'sent' to Angel and Paige after his original vision, but now that he'd started spending time with people again, he was surprised how quickly it became awkward to do this kind of thing without anyone else there.

In the past, he'd been content to go to a bar to get away from his troubles and give himself an excuse not to think for a few hours; now that he had Angel and the others as friends, he was finding himself using his time in bars and clubs as an opportunity to talk to them in a more relaxed environment without expectations (The agency was a place of work, he always slightly felt like he was expected to conform to the residents' standards if he visited someone else's house, and he _definitely_ wasn't inviting anyone to his place unless he had to). Sitting alone might give him time to think, but he missed having someone to talk to about his thoughts in the process…

A slight sense of… _something_ … prompted Doyle to look up, and it didn't take long for his gaze to fall on the source of the sensation that had attracted his attention; a tall, well-built man, bearing a slight resemblance to Doyle himself, looking uncomfortably around himself as he walked, as though looking for some kind of threat out of habit. Stuck for anything else to do, Doyle stood up and raised his glass above his head, allowing the individual in question to spot him and start walking in his direction, Doyle returning to his seat just as his… father… reached the table and sat down opposite him.

"Hello… Francis," the older Brachen began.

"Doyle," Doyle interrupted, looking firmly at him. "I prefer Doyle."

"Doyle, then," the other man said, nodding at him in acceptance, folding his hands together on the table and looking solemnly at him. "This is… difficult… for both of us, so I will begin with the most obvious method; ask me whatever question you have about… our past, and I will endeavour to answer it if I can."

"OK…" Doyle said, looking thoughtfully at Axtius for a moment before he took a deep breath and nodded, his first question obvious. "Why did you leave Mum?"

"Things… happened," Axtius said, his awkward tone making it clear that he knew what he'd said was a poor answer at best. "You have to understand, your mother and I were… happy… together at first, but then others began to wonder about what I am and what I did- my age made it more difficult to fit in with humanity on a regular basis, so there were certain things I simply didn't have the paperwork to do-, and it… it became easier to leave."

"You left 'cause people were asking questions?" Doyle said, looking at Axtius in surprise as he indicated his human features. "Uh… couldn't you do… this then?"

"Oh, I could always do this, but it's…" Axtius began, pausing contemplatively for a moment before he spoke again. "Itchy."

"Itchy?" Doyle repeated in surprise.

"It's… uncomfortable, really," Axtius clarified. "I can take on human form, but since it is not my natural state, my body… likes to return to normal sooner rather than later… I often found it easier not to worry about blending in on my own, and it was so often more straightforward to simply spend time with others of my kind; things with your mother merely happened…"

"Huh," Doyle said, thinking about that for a moment before shrugging. "Guess Mum's genes mean I don't have to deal with that, huh?"

"Most likely," Axtius agreed, nodding slightly at Doyle. "I suppose you… spent a lot of time in your human form?"

"Didn't even know there was something else there until I hit twenty-one," Doyle replied, before his expression became more curious. "Does that have… some relevance to us?"

"Twenty-one is typically the age when a Brachen comes into their full strength and potential," Axtius replied. "As it currently stands, you possess… greater physical prowess than humans in your Brachen form, but your abilities do not match what you would be capable of if your mother had been a Brachen as well."

"Ah," Doyle said, his expression neutral before he looked curiously at his father. "So… I take it the double-jointed limbs are a normal thing?"

"Pardon?" Axtius asked.

"Faked a broken neck once by usin' the fact that the other guys didn't know I could turn my head far enough to do it," Doyle clarified. "Experimented with doin' that kind of thing with my other limbs, but haven't had a reason to use it yet; take it that's normal?"

"It is… something we can do, yes," Axtius said, an honest sense of curiosity about him now as he looked at Doyle. "You have… never encountered another Brachen?"

"Once, a while back; things… didn't go well," Doyle said, hoping that Axtius wouldn't ask him for more details; even if he partly felt that he'd made up for that particular mess when he saved the Listers from the Scourge, he still wasn't inclined to talk about it to a relative stranger. "I was still dealin' with what I'd found out 'bout… well, 'bout you, really… long story short, we didn't have much chance to talk 'bout things."

"I see," Axtius said, his manner the same frustratingly neutral one he had been using earlier. "So, how long have you been… working here?"

"Few months," Doyle said, looking more curiously at his father. "Angel said you'd been followin' me?"

"I traced where you were now after I heard reports of the Scourge's activities in this city; that does not mean that I knew how long you had been here," Axtius clarified, his expression becoming more apologetic as he looked at Doyle. "I am sorry that you have been forced to deal with such a group; the Scourge are a particularly… twisted organisation."

"Tell me about it," Doyle said, shaking his head in frustration. "All that crap about blood purity…"

"Don't you ever resent it?" Axtius said.

"Resent it?" Doyle repeated.

"Being ashamed of what you are," Axtius said, looking inquiringly at Doyle. "Your heritage has left you tainted from the moment of your birth…"

"It's… just something I've grown used to," Doyle said, hoping the diplomatic tone would be enough; he knew that he'd never be completely accepted by humans or demons because one of his two parents would always inspire resentment from someone else, he _really_ wasn't ready to tell this guy the extent of the issues he'd had with his demon heritage over the years…

"What if you could… eliminate that problem?" Axtius said, his expression still frustratingly contemplative and vague as he looked at his son. "If you could know that you would be accepted-?"

"No," Doyle said firmly, voicing his reply before he'd even really thought about it.

He wasn't sure he'd ever be _happy_ with what he was, but at the same time, he was just starting to get used to being part-demon; he wasn't going to abandon his demon side because he didn't always like it (And then there was the question of the visions; how would he be affected by the accompanying headaches if he didn't have his demon side's strength to cope with them?).

"What?" Axtius said, looking at him in surprise.

"Maybe I don't like it that much, but I've been part-demon for years; not going to stop that just 'cause it'd be easier," Doyle said firmly. "Still need to work on things, not denyin' that, but that's no reason to quit tryin'."

"I am offering you a chance to _escape_ that kind of treatment-" Axtius began.

"Can't change what you are and I wouldn't want to anyway," Doyle said, his eyes narrowing as he stood up and glared at his father. "If you just came here to see if I'd be what _you_ want me ter be, I'm not interested, so you can just get out, OK?"

"I…" Axtius said, looking contemplatively at Doyle for a moment, before he nodded with a grim expression. "Very well; if you could just… accompany me out?"

"Sure," Doyle said, standing up to accompany Axtius towards the door of the club, looking over at Piper from her position behind the counter, giving her a brief, reassuring nod, before he looked back at Axtius.

"Look," he said, suddenly regretting his harsher words as he and his father approached the door, "fer what it's worth, I'm glad ye're still alive; I just… well, I'm still workin' on acceptin' that part o' me-"

As he walked out of the club, something slammed into the back of his head, sending Doyle falling to the ground. He tried to shift into his demon form as he felt the impact, but even the strength of his demon side wasn't enough to shake off the pain of the impact, only giving him enough strength to look up at Axtius as he glared down at him.

"I had hoped to give you the chance of joining me willingly," Axtius said, looking scornfully at Doyle, "but, seeing as you clearly aren't ready to _accept_ my gift on your own, I will simply have to _make_ you accept it."

Doyle was about to ask what he meant by that, but another kick to the side of his head let him falling in blackness, helpless to do anything as his father glared scornfully at him…


	47. Flawed Fathers

"He left with his father?" Paige said, looking at Piper in surprise as the Halliwells and Angel sat around P3. "And you just _let_ them leave?"

"Hey, it's his father and Doyle didn't look like he was being forced; how bad could it be?" Piper said, shrugging slightly as she looked at her half-sister. "I mean, I get that he walked out on Doyle's mother, but if he was willing to go to these efforts to find his son, he clearly wants to be more than the guy who left the relationship, right?"

"Yeah…" Paige said, nodding slightly at her before she looked at Angel. "Well, I guess we should consider it a good thing that Doyle felt comfortable enough to leave with him, right?"

"Exactly; Doyle isn't the kind of guy who's going to just call in whenever something happens," Angel said, shrugging slightly. "He'll check back in when he's ready; part of being a team is letting the rest of them deal with their business, after all."

"Hey," Paige said, looking at Angel with a mock glare. "We're not _just_ a team, Angel; I thought we talked about this?"

Whatever reply Angel had been about to make to Paige's reminder of their familial status was cut off when Leo sat down at the table with them, a solemn expression on his face as he looked around the table.

"What are you doing here?" Piper said, looking at Leo in surprise. "Wyatt-"

"I've left him with Wesley for a moment; this situation's urgent," Leo said, looking grimly at the rest of them. "I've been following up a couple of rumours that the Elders had heard about, and they're more accurate than I wanted."

"What rumours?" Phoebe asked, looking anxiously at her brother-in-law; anything that merited concern from the elders definitely deserved due consideration.

"A demonic group known as the Coalition for Purity are in San Francisco," Leo replied.

"The what?" Paige asked, her mind instantly recalling the last time they'd encountered demons with a notable interest in 'purity'. "Are they some… new branch of the Scourge or something?"

"Yes and no," Leo replied. "According to the reports I've found, the Coalition and the Scourge share a mission, but the Scourge are so prejudiced that they'd never ally themselves with _any_ other demon species in the long-term; a short-time alliance might be considered if it was obviously beneficial, but the Scourge's arrogance would lead them to end it sooner rather than later, so the Coalition won't be affiliated with them unless they really need the Scourge for something."

"So, no second attempt at that Beacon thing; good to know," Angel said, nodding in acknowledgement before he looked at the Whitelighter. "So, what do you know about them?"

"Only that they have recruited a large number of various species of demon into their ranks over the years," Leo explained. "The branch that's arrived itself here is fairly small, but it's got potential to become bigger if they can establish a power base. The Coalition tends to rely on physical rather than magic-wielding demons, so the Elders wouldn't normally be concerned, but they're still highly organised, striking out at their targets with military precision and a definite tactical mentality behind their actions; the Coalition would think nothing of sending in a group of three trained soldiers to take out a half-breed lair containing at least three times that. The leader of the local branch is apparently led by a Brachen demon called Axtius-"

" _Axtius_?!" Paige and Angel yelled simultaneously, looking at Leo in shock.

"And… you're _sure_ he's a Brachen demon?" Angel asked, looking anxiously at the Whitelighter, praying that his query would be met with a negative.

"No, he's a Brachen," Leo said, looking at the two in confusion. "Does that… mean something to you?"

Looking at each other, Angel and Paige spent a moment considering what they were about to do, but it didn't take them long to confirm that they didn't have a choice.

They'd always promised that they'd Doyle reveal the truth about his past when he wanted to tell the others about it, but right now, with this new information in front of them, they would have to reveal the truth if they were going to make their friends and family understand why Doyle's safety had just become a priority.

"Axtius…" Angel said, reaching out to take Paige's hand before he looked back at the other Halliwells. "That's the name of Doyle's father."

Piper blinked.

"Doyle's father?" she repeated. "His father is-"

"Doyle's a _demon_?" Phoebe yelled, standing up and glaring angrily at Angel before Piper could finish the sentence herself.

" _Half_ demon; his mother was totally human," Angel corrected, looking firmly at her; he might have promised to keep Doyle's secret, but now that it was out, he was going to make it as clear as he could. "And it's not like Cole; Brachen demons are _my_ class of demon, so there's no-"

"You _knew_?" Phoebe said, looking incredulously at Paige, who was the only person looking remotely casual about this sudden revelation. "After all the _shit_ Cole put me through, you weren't going to-"

"Doyle wanted to give you a chance to get to know him _without_ judging him for the part-demon thing; he's been totally honest about his heritage with Angel and me since we met him, and we trust him," Paige said, looking firmly back at her sister. "He's never lied about his motives for being here or about any other details of his family history; the only thing he hasn't mentioned to you is that his father was a demon, and that's it."

"But-!" Phoebe began.

"OK, we can talk about _that_ later," Piper said, looking firmly between her sisters, husband and friend for a moment before she was sure she had the attention of all four of them. "The priority right now is Doyle; demon dad or now, the guy hasn't done anything to us after working with us for most of the last year, and the fact that he isn't here, coupled with what you just told me about who Axtius is, means that we should be _very_ worried about that."

"Uh… what?" Phoebe said, looking at Piper in confusion; evidently her initial anger at the secret had distracted her from the main issue.

"Look," Piper said, as she looked at her sister, "if this Axtius was the guy I saw Doyle talking to earlier, it looks like he genuinely wanted to _talk_ to Doyle at first, so we need to start thinking about why a guy who's interested in demon purity wouldn't just want to slaughter his half-human son the second he got within arm's reach of the guy."

"And… why would he even _want_ to talk to Doyle?" Phoebe added, a reluctant edge to her voice as though she couldn't believe how quickly she was considering ignoring Doyle's omission even as she voiced her theory. "I mean, if he's against… half-breeds… why would he have any interest in talking to Doyle?"

"As long as we're talking about what doesn't make sense, if he's against half-breed on principle, why would he even _have_ a son like Doyle in the first place?" Piper added, as the thought occurred to her. "I mean, he sowed his own oats; it's not like a human could _make a_ demon sleep with her… right?"

"Not in this case, anyway," Leo confirmed. "Axtius's past isn't well-documented by any of the sources I spoke with, but he only joined the Coalition a decade or so ago, and they've been active long enough that he would have heard of them before then. Given the timing, I think we can safely assume nobody _did_ anything to him to make him angry with humanity when Doyle was conceived, so it's possible that he just didn't have as many… issues… with humans when he knew Doyle's mother as he does now."

"And the reason he'd just want to talk to Doyle in the first place rather than killing him outright to keep his shameful secret quiet?" Piper asked, looking thoughtfully around at the rest of the group.

"Uh… is it possible that he thought he could… 'fix' Doyle?" Phoebe asked, as a disturbing thought occurred to her. "I mean, he _is_ still Doyle's father; maybe he was going to try and… take the human out to make his son 'pure'?"

"Wouldn't that be like parents getting their kids to 'pray the gay away'?" Paige asked, her scathing tone making it clear what she thought of that idea.

"Possibly not," Leo said, looking increasingly grim at the thought. "The Triad liked Cole's human side because it gave him an edge in understanding how to interact with humanity that other demons wouldn't have, but that doesn't mean that it would have been impossible for them to remove it from him."

"Good… point," Phoebe said, her expression showing her discomfort at exploring this issue even as she spoke; evidently, no matter what Paige had told her about Cole's death, it wasn't always easy to remember what things had been like before Cole had snapped. "I mean, Cole had to maintain a degree of control over his demon when he was working with us before Belthazor was vanquished; maybe the Triad could have purged him from Belthazor, but he just never gave them the chance to do it…"

"Oh no…" Angel said, looking at Paige in growing horror at the scenario that was unfolding in their minds.

They may not know for sure what kind of impact purging Doyle's humanity form him would have on him as a person, but the precedent set by Cole's relationship with his demon side wasn't encouraging; even when he'd just been Belthazor, Cole had issues.

Angel hated to make snap judgements, but if Axtius was an example of what the average Brachen was like- they'd never found much information about the pure-blood Brachens as they tended to be rather reclusive-, and if there was any chance that what they were thinking about what possible, they _had_ to get Doyle back…

* * *

  
As he forced his way back to consciousness, Doyle wasn't sure what freaked him out more; that he was half-naked, that he was tied down to some kind of table, that someone had scrawled all kinds of weird runes and sigils on his body that he couldn't recognise, or that his father- his goddamn _father_!- was standing over him dressed in long black robes and holding a very intimidating-looking knife over him.

"What the _hell_?" he said, looking at his father in shock. "Wh-what the hell're you doin'?"

"Preparing you for purification," Axtius said, as though it should have been obvious.

"Purification?" Doyle repeated incredulously. "What's that mean?"

"I shall exorcise your weakness," Axtius said, looking solemnly at him. "You are a tainted abomination on the world, but there is still a chance for you to become something more than that, and I am willing to offer you that chance."

"My weakness?" Doyle said, looking at him in confusion. "What the hell are you talking about, Axy?"

"Call me 'Father'," Axtius said, looking almost sad at Doyle's chosen term of reference before he continued. "And I refer to the taint you received from your mother-"

"'Taint'?" Doyle repeated, looking incredulously at Axtius as the obvious implication of that statement came to him. "Mum was the only person there for me after you _walked out on her_ -"

"If I had known about you-" Axtius began, actually sounding offended at the accusation.

"Yeah, we can all think 'bout what we _would_ have done if we'd known differently; that's not the bloody issue here, Ax!" Doyle interjected. "What the Hell're you _doing_ this for?"

"I am on a mission to purify our bloodlines, my son," Axtius said, still looking at him in that frustratingly solemn manner that made Doyle think of a fanatical preacher. "If you were any other, I would have killed you already, but as you are my son, I have found a means that will save you from the consequences of my youthful foolishness-"

" _Excuse me_?!" Doyle said, glaring at him; he was used to having issues, but it was one thing to feel uncomfortable with your past, and another thing entirely to have someone consider him useless just because of who his mother was

"Your heritage has left you blind to so many possibilities," Axtius said; Doyle couldn't believe that the bastard could actually sound _sorry_ about that. "I am here to help you see more clearly."

"Excuse me?" Doyle said again, too busy trying to figure out some way to get some kind of control over this whole situation to think of something more original to say; he had no idea what this guy was talking about, but the immediate possibilities weren't very encouraging. "You really think you can just… get away with this? I've got friends here, y'know-!"

"Yes, I am aware of your… association with the vampire and the witches," Axtius said, a sneer in the corner of his lip making it clear that he was thinking about using a different term for Doyle's friends. "I am fully prepared for that eventuality; a small division of guards are gathered outside this building as we speak, and we are protected by various wards and amulets. I assure you, there is no way for you to get away-"

The sound of something being blown up interrupted Axtius's speech as he and Doyle turned to look at the source of the noise, just as a large section of the wall collapsed in on itself, revealing Angel, Leo and the Charmed Ones standing on the other side of the hole, grim expressions on their faces as they stared at the robe-clad demon, Angel and Paige holding weapons and Piper's hands raised in preparation while Phoebe maintained a combat stance.

"Hey Doyle," Angel said, grinning at his friend as they noted Doyle still tied to a table. "Sorry we took so long; we only just learned what your dad's actually into these days."

"Better late than never," Doyle said, already feeling more optimistic about his chances; considering how big this place was, he doubted the ritual dear old Dad had been planning was something he could do quickly, so there was no way he could just do… whatever he was going to do… without dealing with them first, and they must have made their way through Axtius's guards to get to this point.

"What?" Axtius said, looking at the group incredulously, clearly following the same line of thought as his in a more negative perspective. "How did you get here; my guards-?!"

"You mean the Fyarls and Polgaras we found out there?" Angel said, smiling as he looked at Axtius, twirling a sword in his hands as he spoke. "Nice choices, but not really up to the standards we're used to; didn't take long to put them down."

"But-!" Axtius began indignantly.

"Your wards?" Paige said, waving her hand at the room around them with a smirk. "I've been training with the former Scourge of Europe on and off for the last few months; you really think that hasn't helped me get over needing to use magic all the time?"

"And on the topic of magic," Phoebe said, her eyes narrowed in a foreboding manner as she glared at Axtius, "I think that's our friend you have on your table?"

"He is _not_ yours!" Axtius said, moving to stand in front of Doyle, glaring at the assembled forces against him. "You encourage his weakness-!"

"Weakness?" Angel repeated, looking scathingly at Axtius. "Doyle is willing to risk his life for what he believes in; just because it's not what _you_ believe in doesn't mean it's not commendable."

"Exactly," Leo said, fixing Axtius with a firm stare. "Whatever else Doyle is, he's a good man, first and foremost; he was willing to die for people who couldn't defend themselves, and all you've done is kill people because you're angry at what the world is like."

"I kill for _my people_ -!" Axtius began, glaring indignantly at them.

"You kill because it's easier than trying to do things any other way," Phoebe said, staring at him in what Piper in particular had come to think of as her sister's 'advice expression', assessing the information she had about the subject and voicing her opinion of the other person accordingly. "I get that you're mad that demons aren't the ones in charge any more, but you learned how to cope with that once or Doyle wouldn't be here; the only thing you hate is the reminder of your own perceived weakness for wanting to get along with us."

"There will _never_ be peace-!" Axtius spat, his eyes flaring red as he spoke.

"I thought that myself once," Phoebe said, looking at Axtius with what could almost have been pity as she walked forward, looking solemnly at him. "Then I met my ex… your son… a demon-turned-priest who wanted to get away from it all… those Ano-movic guys we met a while back… and I realised that we _can_ get along. Maybe it requires some sacrifices on everyones' parts, and there's going to be the occasional culture clash, but if we just _want_ to stop trying to kill each other, we can still make it work; everyone has to keep _something_ secret to get by in the modern world, even if it's a bit more drastic in your case than-"

Roaring in rage at her belittling of his actions, Axtius charged towards Phoebe, forcing her to lash out with a powerful levitation-aided kick before he could make contact. The blow didn't do much more than daze him, but it was enough of a distraction for Angel to assume his vampire face and move into position, tossing his sword to Paige as he shifted into a combat stance.

The Halliwells didn't even need to ask what Angel was up to; regardless of what prior training they might have in fighting without their powers, if any of them were going to defeat Axtius in a straight fight in a room where they couldn't use their magic, Angel was the best candidate.

"You think you can defeat _me_?" Axtius roared, his eyes flaring as he glared at the vampire.

"I'm counting on it," Angel said, looking firmly back at the Brachen demon. "Either let my friend go, or-"

Clearly hoping to take Angel by surprise, Axtius charged towards him, fists flying, only for Angel to neatly avoid his opponent's initial attacks, ducking aside from one blow before he began deflecting them with his own hands. Axtius was far faster than Doyle had been in the rare occasions when Angel had managed to spar with him in Brachen form, but his rage was making it hard for him to focus, allowing Angel to slip past some of his blows while unleashing his own.

"You're pathetic, you know that, Axtius?" Angel said, staying on the move as he looked at the warrior. "All this time, and you're still pissed off because you can't forgive yourself for not hating everything once."

"I was ignorant of the truth then!" Axtius said, their fight briefly halting as Angel grabbed Axtius's left fist while the Brachen grabbed the vampire's other hand. "I now know-"

"The only thing you _know_ is that you don't like what your son's done with his life," Angel said, the two straining against their trapped fists. "All Doyle's done is make his own path, and you're objecting because you don't like it-"

"NO!" Axtius spat. "You cater to his weakness and make less than what he could be-!"

"And what gives you the right to say _anything_ about what he could be?" Angel retorted, glaring back at Axtius. "You had your chance to be there for Doyle when he was growing up and you never even bothered to find him; all you want him for now is to continue killing people _you_ don't like, and screw the _idea_ that Doyle might have things he wants to do himself."

" _ENOUGH_!" Axtius roared, pulling his arm back so sharply that Angel lost his grip before he could adjust his grip to compensate for the shift. Still holding on to the vampire, Axtius yanked Angel towards him with a roar that seemed better suited to an animal than anything humanoid, only for the vampire to lean back and let the fist pass over him, shifting into his vampire face and biting down on Axtius's arm. As Axtius screamed, Angel tore away a chunk of flesh with his teeth before standing up once again, launching a powerful punch at Axtius's face before the Brachen could regain his balance. The force of the attack sent Axtius falling to the ground, leaving Angel standing over him, one hand outstretched before Paige tossed the sword back to him, leaving Angel to stand over his fallen adversary with the blade at his throat.

"I could kill you," Angel said, looking grimly at Axtius as he held his sword to the Brachen's neck, before he stood back. "But you're Doyle's father."

"And?" Axtius said, looking scornfully at him.

"And that biological tie is the only thing saving your life right now," Angel said as he walked over to join the Halliwells, his gaze remaining fixed on Axtius. "You did something good for us once, even if you didn't know it at the time, and we're giving you this now; leave town, and don't come back, because the next time we have to fight you, we _will_ kill you."

"And before you try anything stupid," Leo put in, looking firmly at Axtius, "we already took out your immediate guards, and I don't think you want to make your interest in Doyle any more public among the Coalition than you have to; you're outnumbered, outgunned, and you're only getting out of here if you do what we say and don't try anything. Clear?"

For a moment, Axtius just glared up at the vampire, indignation at being dismissed warring with his recognition of the fact that he wasn't in any position to fight back right now, before he stood up, still glaring at his enemies in indignation, before he walked briskly towards the gap in the wall that the Halliwells had used to enter, pausing as his attention turned back to his son.

"You have rejected my offer on this occasion, _Doyle_ ," he said, glaring at his son, "but you will regret it one day-"

"Been there, done that, got the shirt; done a lot of things I'll regret over the years, but pretty sure this ain't gonna be one of 'em," Doyle said, looking firmly back at his father. "Angel gave you an offer, an' I suggest you take it; _get out_."

With a last grim glare at Doyle, Axtius turned around and walked away, leaving the group to look at each other with a slight smile.

"Uh… OK, I have to ask; you sure 'bout doing that?" Doyle said, indicating the hole that Axtius had used as an exit as he looked uncertainly at his friends. "I mean, he's not just goin' to give up…"

"Maybe not," Angel said, shrugging as he looked at his friend, "but I meant what I said to him; no matter what else he's done, he's still your father, which means we owe him enough that we're not going to kill him now."

Despite the fact that the man had just tried to kill him, Doyle had to agree with Angel's point; he wasn't sure he was up to seeing his father die just after meeting him, even if the guy had been a bastard.

"Besides," Paige said with a smile, "he's not going to risk coming back here in full force just for you- it'd be a bit awkward to explain to his Coalition buddies-, so you're fairly safe-"

"Coalition?" Doyle repeated in confusion.

"Oh," Phoebe said, suddenly looking awkwardly at Doyle as she realised his obvious ignorance of his father's true agenda. "Uh… thing is, your father is… well, he's basically a member of a massive group of demons trying to kill pretty much every half-breed demon they can find, so-"

"Hold on; you _know_?" Doyle said, his eyes wide before he glared indignantly at Angel and Paige. "You _told_ them?"

"Leo came to warn us that a Brachen demon called Axtius was here to set up a branch of the Coalition for Purity, and you were last seen leaving P3 _with_ Axtius; we didn't want to risk wasting time trying to figure out another way to make finding him a priority without just telling the truth," Paige said, shrugging apologetically at her Irish friend. "I know you wanted to tell them on your own, but we didn't have the time for that; they had to know why this was an issue, and we had to stop your father completing that ritual."

"Right…" Doyle said, looking awkwardly at the group for a moment before he looked at Paige. "How did you find me?"

"When scrying didn't work, we were able to use Phoebe's visions to find you," Paige explained. "Instead of searching for you as a person, we searched for someone else who had a power similar to Phoebe's, and… well, here we are."

"That worked?" Doyle said in surprise.

"Hey, we have such similar powers, I figured it was worth a _shot_ , right?" Phoebe pointed out, smiling slightly at him before she sighed and walked over to the table. "Anyway, for what it's worth, I'm… I'm sorry about your father."

"He's not my dad; he's just-" Doyle began.

"Prue thought that way about our dad for a while," Phoebe said, looking sympathetically at Doyle. "She spent years thinking of him as nothing more than the guy who fathered us and walked out on all three of us before I could even really remember him, but even with all that, I wanted to give him a chance… and I'm guessing you never really thought much about your father before today, right?"

"Not really," Doyle replied with a shrug. "Your point?"

"My point," Phoebe said, reaching out to place a reassuring hand on Doyle's shoulder, "is that I get wanting to know your dad even if you never gave it much thought; the fact that he turned out to be a racist bastard opposed to everything you are biologically has to suck, even if you didn't give it much thought."

"Fathers," Angel said with a sigh. "We need them to come into being, but there's always going to be some issue or another screwing things up."

"Tell me about it," Paige said. "I mean, my bio-dad doesn't show up even after we brought him back into the game, my adopted dad died when I was seventeen, Victor's never there, your dad couldn't accept you when you were alive and Angelus killed him after he emerged, and Leo…"

"Actually, my childhood was fine," Leo said, shrugging at Paige with a slight smile, as though embarrassed to admit that he was the only person here who hadn't had a bad childhood. "My father actually inspired my career as an army medic; he had a similar role in the First World War."

"Huh," Piper said, looking at Leo with a smile. "Family tradition of healing, huh?"

"We just… we were close," Leo said with an awkward shrug. "He died before I did, and I never really… well, there's a difference between Up There and Heaven…"

"Time to talk about that later," Phoebe said, looking apologetically at Leo- she guessed that Paige had only mentioned Leo because he was there rather than actually thinking about it- before she looked back at Doyle with a slightly awkward smile. "Anyway, the point is that we all get why this might be a difficult time for you even if you don't want to think about it, so, once we're out of here, maybe we could… have a drink or two to talk about it?"

Despite the fact that his own father had almost ripped away part of his very nature just because he didn't like what Doyle had become, Doyle couldn't recall when he'd last felt like grinning this much.

He had a _date_ with Phoebe…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify right now, Axtius _will_ be back, but it's not going to be for a while; he's been given some things to think about regarding his 'relationship' with Doyle, and even if he's not going to change his current mentality towards half-breeds, he is going to have to re-evaluate why he's doing this to himself…
> 
> To anyone who wanted him dead, I felt that Doyle wasn't quite ready to deal with the emotional complications of meeting, being betrayed by, and killing his father on the same day, to say nothing of Angel feeling that they didn't have the right to do something like that; it gives them more to think about if the guy's still alive and waiting for a rematch


	48. Angel and the Andersons

Glancing over the agency 'armoury' while Angel was away on a supply run, Paige was surprised at just how many weapons Angel and Wesley had assembled over the years.

She'd thought that the Book of Shadows was interesting as an example of long-term personal history, but it was still one specific item; the idea that somehow these individual items had _all_ been preserved- even if some weren't needed any more; apparently one of the knives was used to kill a certain type of demon that had since gone extinct- was actually rather impressive even with her limited interest in history.

It was a strange thing to think about, but it wasn't like there was much else to keep them occupied right now. With magical demons holding off on going after Wyatt, and the physical demons reluctant to try anything after Angel's defeat of Axtius, they'd had the time to work on more personal issues beyond dealing with magic; Piper and Leo had even spent some time recently at a marriage counsellor to talk about some of their current relationship issues; the situation may have also resulted in her and Phoebe having to protect the Halliwells' old cat from a warlock hi-jacking a spell of Piper's, but the actual counselling had gone well, helping Leo acknowledge his need to work on a life outside of his marriage and Piper work on her own role in the relationship.

Actually, relationship-wise, things were going pretty well for most of the group. Phoebe and Doyle had only been on a couple of dates so far, but they were finding the transition from friends to 'more-than-friends' to be relatively smooth, even if Phoebe's past history was making her reluctant to define the relationship so far. Phoebe had assured the rest of the group that Doyle was comfortable accepting the recent revelation about his father's true nature, but she'd declined to offer more specific details; some things she'd just prefer to keep to herself.

Quite frankly, the only downside to Paige's current good mood was that Wesley was probably feeling left out of everything at the moment; when dealing with an established family and their significant others- even if one of the relationships was fairly new-, it had to be tough being the single guy new to the business in that equation. He was finding ways to keep himself occupied, of course, but that didn't mean the ex-Watcher couldn't be feeling frustrated at the fact that he had nobody to share his private time with…

Her thoughts on Wesley were interrupted when her phone rang.

"Hello?" she said, as she took the call.

" _We got a situation_ ," Doyle said, in the slightly dazed tone that she'd come to recognise as his usual post-vision disorientation. " _Where's Angel_?"

* * *

  
Sitting in the car with Wesley, Angel had to wonder what it said about him that he was this willing to sit in a small area alongside someone who was clearly uncomfortable being left alone with him (Paige claimed that it simply made sense to send them when theyw ere already out of the office, but Angel wondered if she was trying to ).

It wasn't that Wesley was actively hostile towards him or anything like that- the ex-Watcher's initial attempt to shoot him after learning his identity as Angelus aside, the guy had never been anything but civil to him-, but there was still a constant sense of tension about him whenever they were alone together since that mess with Penn. Paige tried to encourage them to get past that by having them go out together on these minor trips, such as picking up the food supplies for Angel's apartment- he might not eat himself, but he was getting comfortable preparing food for Paige and her family these days-, but there was still relatively little for them to talk about; Wesley just didn't know enough about Angel right now to let his guard down enough to engage a vampire in casual conversation.

It was ironic, but the fact that they'd seen Angelus actually made it easier for the Charmed Ones and Leo to feel comfortable about him as they knew what he wasn't, and Doyle was strong enough to know that he could hold his own if Angel snapped long enough to get away, but Wesley didn't have any comparisons to draw on and would be easy prey if he ever tried something…

It was a depressing chain of thought, but he just didn't know enough about the current case to give it any thought; he didn't even know if they were trying to stop someone breaking into the house, stop someone in the house, or what-

The sight of a young boy in his pyjamas walking out of the house and into the street as a car came rapidly around the corner gave Angel the new train of thought he'd been waiting for; without saying a word to Wesley, he leapt out of the car, ran across the street, and tackled the boy off the street just in time, the car driving by honking its horn.

"You all right?" Angel asked, looking anxiously at the boy.

"Yeah," the boy replied, looking curiously at him. "You're bleeding. Are you going to cry?"

"I don't think so," Angel said, looking at his shoulder- the sleeve was torn and there was blood around the tear, but nothing serious- with a slight smile before looking back at the boy. "Let me think… nope; not gonna cry."

As the boy smiled back, Angel smiled reassuringly at him; at least the boy didn't seem too shaken by whatever had happened, even if his lack of reaction was also slightly disturbing in its way. "What's your name?"

"Ryan," the boy replied.

"Ryan," Angel said thoughtfully. "You want to tell me what you were doing outside?"

"Ryan!" a voice called from the house, Angel looking up to see a man who was most likely Ryan's father running out of the house, grabbing his son by the shoulders. "Son, you know better than this!"

Pausing to briefly look at Angel as though he'd only just registered that the vampire was present, the man turned his attention back to his son with the same firm tone. "Say 'thank you' to the nice man. You come inside!"

"Ryan!" a woman that was almost certainly Ryan's mother yelled as she hurried out of the house in a bathrobe, hugging him in relief. "Oh my God, oh my God; what happened?"

"He was in the street," the father said. "He almost got hit. Paige, he's fine."

Angel briefly started at the name, but quickly got himself under control as he realised that it was just the name of Ryan's mother, who was currently hugging her son and sobbing in relief; it was an unusual little coincidence, but that was all.

"It's cold," the father said, ignoring his wife's sobs. "Let's just… get him inside."

"You saved him," Paige said, looking at Angel as she brushed her hair out of her face. "Thank God you were here."

"It's no problem," Angel said, smiling reassuringly at her before he turned to look at Ryan, reaching over to tousle his hair slightly. "Scamp, isn't he?"

"You're hurt!" Paige said, looking at Angel's shoulder. "Come inside."

Stuck for anything else he could say that wouldn't risk giving too much information, and needing a closer look at the house anyway, Angel accepted the invitation into the family home, taking off his jacket and shirt to let Paige clean his wound.

"Are you sure you don't want to drive you to the emergency room?" Paige asked, after the worst of the blood had been cleaned up. "I think you may need some stitches."

"I'll be fine, really," Angel said. "I'm not a big bleeder."

"We just moved in," Paige said, looking around the house. "Still a little bit jumbled. It doesn't get any easier, you know. Every new place you have to start over; finding friends… people to talk to…"

"Ryan's asleep," the father said as he walked back into the room. "He's… out like a light."

"Seems like a nice kid," Angel said, holding the washcloth Paige had just given him against his shoulder; if she wasn't touching it, Paige would have less chance of realising just how quickly the bleeding had stopped.

"He is; thank you so much!" Paige said, laughing at her comment. "That is the millionth time I said that!"

Angel grinned politely at her; he didn't know what was going on here, but Paige seemed like a pleasant person, even if her husband was a bit distant.

"Really, thank you," Paige said, looking directly at him. "If there is anything we can do for you. Money? Or… Seth's an investment advisor. Do you need some advice?"

"No, nothing," Angel said, shaking his head; between everything he'd gathered other the years as Angelus and what he was making working with the Halliwells, he was really fairly comfortable financially. "But thank you."

"Paige, honey," Seth said, laughing slightly at his wife's insistence, "he probably just wants to go home and get cleaned up."

"So, how do you think Ryan got out into the street?" Angel asked, trying to focus on something more relevant.

"Climbed out the window," Seth said bluntly.

"We have burglar bars," Paige put in, "but he must be able to fit between. We didn't think of that, didn't even bother checking."

"So where do you think he was going?" Angel asked, even as he pondered what he'd just heard; burglar bars were normally designed with the intention of stopping people from getting _in_ , but Paige acted like the possibility of Ryan getting out had been a factor when the bars were installed…

"Going?" Seth said. "He wasn't going anywhere."

"So you think he was trying to get away from something," Angel said.

"What would he have to get away from in his own house?" Seth asked, his tone becoming firmer and colder as he looked at Angel.

"Anyway!" Paige said, looking at Angel's bleeding wound, evidently not wanting to discuss this any further and stuck for anything better to talk about, "I'd better just see to that cut; can we at least get you a bandage?"

"That… sure," Angel said, nodding at Paige as she left to collect the bandages; it might be awkward, and he'd need to explain how his injury had healed so quickly, but it would be an excuse to find out a bit more about whatever was happening here.

As Paige left to get the medical kit, Angel settled down on the chair while Seth pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

"This bother you?" Seth asked, indicating the cigarette in question.

"No," Angel replied honestly; as a vampire, smoking wasn't actually a concern to him, but he wasn't that interested in doing it himself, given the potential consequences of second-hand smoke to those around him.

"A lot of health nuts these days, you know?" Seth said, as he leaned back and took another drag on the cigarette. "Like anyone needs to live forever."

"No one needs that," Angel said, smiling at the thought as Seth took another drag from the cigarette.

"She'll be right back with the bandages, and then… you can go," Seth said firmly.

"Right," Angel said, as Paige came back in. "Paige was telling me that you were new in town; where did you-?"

"What?" Paige said, staring incredulously at Angel's virtually unmarked shoulder as she examined the arm; if it weren't for a faint line and the blood, it would have been impossible to know that he'd been injured earlier. "This was _much_ worse…"

"It's just a scratch," Angel said, trying to bring the conversation back on to something else. "Seth was telling me where you lived before."

"We spent a few months in Los Angeles, but… well, we came here on business and I decided I liked the atmosphere better here," Paige said as she applied the bandage. "We were in Akron before that, and let me tell you, one winter there was enough."

"You know what?" Seth said. "It strikes me you never told us your name."

"Angel," Angel said in response, mind suddenly scrambling for another name to go with that (He was an official private detective; he _really_ needed to sort out a full name for legal reasons). "Angel… Jones."

"Angel?" Paige said, smiling slightly at the news.

"Honey?" Seth said, as Paige turned around, opened a cardboard box, and took two ceramic angels out of a box.

"See?" she said, grinning at him.

"Angels?" Angel said, surprised at the sight; he'd never really given his namesakes much thought beyond Kathy's initial assumption- particularly since he'd met the real things in the form of Leo and Paige-, but it was actually kind of nice to see someone with a real interest.

"I collect them!" Paige explained with a grin. "I think the angels are around us all the time, don't you?"

"I think there's… something, anyway," Angel said, looking contemplatively at the models in his hands.

"It's a nice thought," Paige said, continuing to smile despite her husband's obvious scepticism. "Like someone's looking out for us, keeping us out of danger… And tonight you really were our angel, weren't you?"

"I think I was just in the right place," Angel said, standing up and handing the angels back to Paige. "Anyway… nice meeting you."

"Come to dinner," Paige said suddenly.

"Paige," Seth said, looking pointedly at her as he stood up from the couch.

"Tomorrow night," Paige said. "Say you will. Let us pay you back for looking after us."

"Sure thing," Angel said, smiling at her before Seth could say something; if there was something going on here, a second look would be a good idea. "OK if I bring a couple of things?"

Paige's smile in response was enough confirmation for Angel to know that his question had been answered; all he could do now was hope that Wesley had found something that would back up his gut instinct beyond the way Paige was acting so jumpy around Seth…

* * *

  
"OK," Paige said, putting the phone down after an hour's worth of conversation back-tracking the facts, "we can now definitely say that there's something off with this family; Darryl and I ran a couple of checks, and they've lived in Los Angeles, Akron, Miami and Baton Rouge, all within the last three years."

"And it's unlikely to be normal moving about, eh?" Doyle asked, as he, Angel and Wesley sat around their desks.

"Everywhere they go, there've been reports of disturbances and animal deaths; being that unlucky in one location I can excuse, but this much?" Paige said, looking sceptically at the agency's seer. "I mean, in Akron, a friend of the family went missing, and he's _still_ missing."

"Well," Wesley said, picking up the small vial of glowing yellow mucus that he'd gathered from around the house while Angel was keeping the family busy, "at least that confirms my assessment of this."

"What is it?" Paige asked, looking curiously at the vial.

"The bodily excretion of an Ethros demon," Wesley said.

"Uh… doesn't that mean… well, demon waste?" Paige asked, looking at the vial with new distaste. "You're putting _poo_ on the table?"

"It's contained and harmless," Wesley said reassuringly, before his expression became grimmer. "Unfortunately, the demon itself is not."

"How bad are we talking?" Paige asked.

"It tends to go in for mass murder," Wesley explained. "You've heard of Lizzie Borden? She killed her parents with an axe?"

"You're saying one of these possessed her?" Paige asked, taking a moment to think of the case; she recalled some controversy about the evidence that Lizzie had committed the crime even if there wasn't much doubt that she'd been the one to do it.

"And that was just an adolescent," Angel said, looking grimly at the vial. "Based on the amount produced, we're dealing with an adult this time around."

"So someone in that family has… something inside them?" Paige said. "What can we do?"

"Exorcism," Angel said firmly.

"Cool," Paige said as she stood up. "I'll get…"

Her voice trailed off as she noted Angel apologetically shaking his head. "Not that easy, huh?"

"Exorcisms require specific words and rituals in order to be successful," Angel explained, looking apologetically at her. "Your methods would work if we were trying to exorcise a ghost, but when dealing with a demon, if you and your sisters tried to exorcise something like this, we run the risk that your power could end up drawing the demon into one of you before you can banish it."

"Ah," Paige said, nodding in apprehensive understanding. "Gotcha."

"I can track down a priest willing to perform the exorcism, but that still leaves us with the question of determining who to exorcise," Wesley said.

"The father seemed kind of off," Angel noted. "They were afraid of him."

"A father doesn't have to be possessed to terrorise his children," Wesley said. "He just has to…"

As Wesley paused, Paige briefly wondered what he had been about to say, but quickly decided that she didn't want to know; she'd had enough to deal with regarding issues like that when she was a social worker, and she definitely didn't want to press the issue when it was someone she liked.

"We'll find out soon enough," Wesley said, nodding firmly as he looked at the rest of the team. "The first step in confronting the demon is getting him to show himself. A little psylis eucalipsis powder ingested by the host…"

"And we see the face of our enemy?" Paige asked.

"Pretty much, yes," Wesley said.

"So how do I get someone to eat eucalipsis powder?" Angel asked.

"Actually, that might not be that difficult," Wesley said, smiling over at Paige. "If we can ask your sister for help, I do have an idea or two about what we might be able to use."


	49. The Demon in the Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify in advance, I'll be referring to Paige Anderson as 'Paige A' to distinguish her from Paige Matthews

It might be an unusual situation, considering that they were here to expose a demon, but Angel had to admit that he was slightly looking forward to this dinner with the Andersons. Considering that virtually everyone he knew was only known to him through their relationship with the Halliwells, he couldn't remember the last time he'd done anything with anyone that wasn't directly related to demons (They were here to expose a demon, but the family weren't aware of that).

When he and Paige had approached the Halliwells about the current exorcism, Piper had been unhappy to learn that Paige was going after something so dangerous without her sisters as back-up, but she'd accepted the request. Despite her distaste at not being able to help, Piper had admitted to enjoying the chance to make something as simple as brownies; she was trying to experiment with some new recipes, but with a baby in the house, there was something satisfying about getting back to old favourites for the future.

"Hi," Angel said, as Paige Anderson opened the door, holding up the box of brownies with one hand and wrapping his other one around Paige. "I brought brownies and my girlfriend."

"Girlfriend?" Paige A. said, looking at Paige in surprise.

"Hi," Paige said, smiling at her as she held out her hand. "I'm… well, I'm Paige; I understand we share the same name?"

"Oh… yes," Paige A said, smiling awkwardly at the other woman. "I'm… I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting Angel to bring anyone…"

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Paige said, smiling understandingly at the other woman. "Angel doesn't eat that much anyway; just give me some of his portion and we'll all be happy."

As he entered the house and sat down to eat with the family, it didn't take Angel long to establish that things were definitely tense among the Andersons. They were civil enough towards each other, and the kids seemed normal enough, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Paige A seemed to be slightly jumpier than he'd expect of a completely happy household, and seemed to be keeping just slightly too close an eye on the children…

"So," Paige A said, smiling at her name-double after Paige and Angel had subtly exhausted all possible topics of conversation about the Anderson family history without appearing too nosy, "how did you and Angel meet?"

"He helped me out with a difficult time in my life- I was meeting my half-sisters for the first time; it's a long story- and… well, one thing led to another," Paige said with a shrug.

"You make a point of helping people, huh?" Paige A said, looking at Angel with a curious smile.

"I… do what I can," Angel said, smiling uncertainly back a ther.

"He's being modest," Paige said, smiling at her boyfriend before she looked around at the family with a smile. "I was a social worker back when we met, but after a couple of hard cases at work, I decided that I wanted to do something that would stop people needing those services in the first place; result, Angel and I went into business together and opened a private detective agency, including us, my brother-in-law, a couple of friends…"

She shrugged. "The pay's more erratic in that line of work, of course, but I really feel like we're doing something with our time, you know?"

"Anyway," Angel said, as he ate the last spoonful of food in front of him, smiling reassuringly at Paige A, "thanks for the meal, really; everything was… very good."

"The roast was a little dry," Seth noted as Paige A began to clear the table.

"No; it was fine," Paige said, looking reassuringly at her name counterpart.

"I think we're ready to try your brownies, Angel," Paige A said, smiling as she took her and Paige's plates.

"I'll get the coffee," Seth said, standing up and picking up Angel's plate along with his own, both parents leaving for the kitchen.

"I didn't like the Brussel sprouts," Ryan said, leaning over to speak quietly to Angel. "They're gross."

"Really?" Paige said, looking over at Stephanie with a smile. "You seemed to like them."

In response, Stephanie unfolded her napkin to reveal a sprout hidden in it.

"Nice," Paige said, nodding in approval at the little girl.

"I buried one in my mashed potatoes, too," Angel said, whispering softly at the girl, who giggled as the parents entered the room once more.

"What are you laughing at?" Seth asked as he walked back in with a pot of coffee.

"Angel's funny," Stephanie said with a smile.

"Yeah?" Seth said, as he poured the coffee. "He hides it well."

"Angel has a very… interesting sense of humour," Paige said, shrugging out of a lack of anything else to say, instead choosing to focus on the brownies. "Anyway, hope you like those; my sister made them."

"Oh, really?" Paige A said, smiling at her. "What does she do?"

"She owns a nightclub, but she originally trained as a chef," Paige explained, smiling as she took a bite of her brownie, noting briefly that the powder didn't seem to have that much impact on the taste; maybe a little extra edge, but nothing major…

As everyone chewed appreciatively on their food, Paige's eyes flicked over to Seth- it might be jumping to conclusions, but he was the most obvious candidate for possession so far- only for a sudden scream to divert her attention back to the children, Stephanie looking at Ryan in horror as his face seemed to suddenly become longer and more lined around the jaw while his eyes went white. Paige and Angel immediately leapt to their feet, shifting into a combat stance in case the demon tried to attack, but the only thing Ryan did was collapse to the table after a moment when his head seemed to be franticly jerking around.

"Oh God, Ryan!" Paige A said, hurrying over to hug her son. "What's wrong?"

"Your son's possessed by a demon," Angel said before Paige could come up with a better way of revealing that information.

"Ryan's bad," Stephanie said tearfully, as Seth and Paige A looked at each other in shock. "Ryan's always been bad."

"Stephanie," Seth said, looking firmly at his daughter, prompting the little girl to get up and leave (Which was at least something to be thankful for; Paige might be an aunt now, but she wasn't ready to talk about demons to little kids who didn't have to deal with it).

"OK," Paige said, turning to look at the older woman as her name counterpart anxiously held her son, "I know that this is probably not what you want to hear, but Ryan's OK; we just needed to get the demon to show itself first-"

" _You_ did this to him?" Paige A said, looking at her in shock.

"The demon was already there; we just used the brownies to-" Angel began,

"You put something in our food?" Paige A said, looking between Paige and Angel in shock. "You poisoned him?"

" _No_ ," Paige said, walking over to glare at the other woman. "Angel is _not_ here to hurt anyone, and neither am I; we're here to help your son, and we're sorry we had to scare you, but we had to be sure we knew who and what we were dealing with before we told you the truth."

"It's OK," Seth said suddenly.

"Seth, he _did this_ to Ryan-!" Paige A began.

"We both know that that is not true; what was wrong with Ryan has been wrong for a long time," Seth said, getting up from his seat to look anxiously at the witch and the vampire. "Now you say you know how to help my son?"

"We do," Paige confirmed, re-evaluating her old thoughts on this man; it was starting to look like his authoritative approach was more a desperate attempt to keep control rather than a jerkish desire to be the one in charge. "Just let us get a phone, and we'll get started."

* * *

  
Less than an hour later, Paige and Angel had finished tying Ryan down to the bed in Angel's apartment- Paige was glad that his face had retained its demon aspect; the kid might look like his skin was peeling, but at least he didn't look normal- Seth and Paige A watching their son anxiously while Wesley checked his contacts to find a priest who could perform the exorcism. Paige had called Piper to update her about the case while they were on their way to the apartment, but had advised her older sister that it wouldn't be a good idea for her or Phoebe to come to the apartment at the moment; according to Wesley's research, Paige's Whitelighter half should make her relatively safe from possession as her Whitelighter purity would automatically hurt the Ethros if it tried to possess her, but Piper and Phoebe's powers would make them too tempting a target if the demon managed to get out of Ryan on its own.

To the Andersons' credit, they were coping with the revelation of Ryan's possession fairly well now that the initial shock was out of the way, but she wasn't going to kid herself by thinking that they were totally comfortable with what had happened; even after everything that had been happening in their lives recently, it couldn't be easy to accept that a demon had been the cause of it all.

With Seth and Paige A trying to reassure each other- actually, Paige noted that Seth was mainly doing the reassuring; the more she saw of the older woman, the more she noted that her name-twin was living in denial when it came to accepting that her son had any kind of problem, particularly if someone had died in a fire that Ryan had apparently started if she was interpreting what she was hearing correctly- Paige was left to hold down the metaphorical fort and keep Wesley's protective charms clearly drawn on the floor so that Ryan and his unwanted 'guest' didn't try to escape, while Doyle kept an eye on things in the upper office in case of any unexpected arrivals.

Keeping the circle intact might be a boring task, but at least it was more straightforward than some of the ritual chants she'd had to cast to keep her enemies contained in the past…

As the door to the apartment finally opened, Paige got up with a hopeful smile, but the smile faltered when only Angel and Wesley came through the door, obviously lacking the priest they'd gone to collect for the exorcism.

"No luck, huh?" she said.

"Well, we did find the priest we were looking for; it was just unfortunate that he was already deceased," Wesley explained, looking grimly at Paige.

"That's life, I guess," Angel said, shaking his head in frustration. "First I get threatened by a nun for coming into a church because she guessed what I was, and then it turns out that the guy we were looking for died trying to exorcise another Ethros about a year ago."

"Oh," Paige said, looking awkwardly between the two men, suddenly stuck for what she could say to that revelation; people dying wasn't exactly something she was unfamiliar with since becoming a witch, but apart from Prue, up until now, she'd never really had a reason to miss someone she'd never actually met before they died. "So… I've spent the last couple of hours trying to calm these parents down, and you're saying that we can't exorcise the demon?"

"No," Wesley said grimly. "We're saying that _I'm_ exorcising it."

"Actually, _he's_ saying that; _I'm_ not comfortable with this," Angel said, looking firmly at Wesley, clearly prepared to continue a pre-established argument. "Look, Wes, you've never done this kind of thing before, and it takes tremendous mental strength-"

"And a resistance to suggestion," Wesley said, looking calmly back at the vampire. "Yes, I understand that; I like to think of myself as possessing a certain-"

"Wesley, you don't even have _sales_ resistance," Angel said. "How many thighmasters do you own?"

"The second one was a free gift-" Wesley began.

"Look, can we focus on the issue here?" Paige said, looking between the two men; the image of Wesley using a thighmaster wasn't something she wanted to consider any more than she had to. "If Wesley can't do this, maybe-"

"It has to be me," Wesley said firmly. "These rituals require the exorcist to make themselves available for potential possession at the same time as they are preparing to drive the demon out, so the Ethros would never come out for Paige as her power would prompt it to retreat further into its current host, Piper and Phoebe's powers would make them too tempting a target, Angel can't hold some of the relics that would need to be used, and Doyle's link to the Powers makes him too risky a target-"

"Doyle's visions make him a risk?" Paige said, looking at Wesley in confusion. "Why?"

"We understand relatively little about how Doyle's visions work, but Ethros demons are naturally complicated anyway," Wesley explained. "If an Ethros managed to possess Doyle, it's possible that it could use the link to the Powers by his visions to travel back to… wherever they are… and attack them directly, which… well, we can't know what would happen, but I think we can all agree that it would be risky."

"So… it's you or nobody, huh?" Paige said, sighing as she looked at the ex-Watcher.

Things were still so uncertain where Wesley was concerned- even Doyle was basically family after his role in saving Wyatt; they might trust Wesley's skills, but compared to the rest he was essentially just the guy who was there because he knew his stuff and didn't have anywhere else to be-, but that didn't mean Paige liked putting him at risk like this…

"All right," Angel said, speaking for Paige as he looked grimly at the ex-watcher. "You'll do it, but I'm going to be right there with you."

"OK," Paige said, looking between the two men. "What do we need?"

* * *

  
It was when she was preparing rituals that Paige really recognised the differences between her 'brand' of magic and the kind of magic that Wesley and Angel were more familiar with. Her and her sisters could exorcise ghosts and demons relatively quickly with their own spells when facing the right kind of demon, but these Ethros demons apparently required far more attention; Wesley had quickly determined that certain rituals would be better than others while working to expel this creature, and they also had to worry about the risk of Wesley being possessed in the process.

The part of this ritual that Paige really hated was hearing how the demon in the kid was continuing to try and manipulate his host's parents into letting him go. She knew that she wasn't actually dealing with an abused kid, but her social work training was to respond when a kid screamed and/or cried like Ryan had been for the last few minutes, and constantly telling herself that it wasn't really him would only get her so far, even if Paige A _wasn't_ trying to get to him. They'd already had one close call, but fortunately Paige's presence and a few hastily-remembered words of Latin had been enough to force the demon back into Ryan while proving Wesley's point about its vulnerability to her Whitelighter side; the mother still seemed shaken, but at least she was more willing to accept that there was something else going on now.

"How's it going here?" she asked, looking anxiously at Angel and Wesley as Wesley studied his books.

"Well, we think we've identified the right passages for the exorcism, but if this is going to work, we're going to need you to get an Ethros box," Angel said, looking apologetically at Paige.

"A what?" Paige asked.

"Ethros box," Angel explained. "It turns out that when an Ethros is exorcised from its host, it immediately tries to take a new one, with the force of the possession killing the new vessel; an Ethros box should allow us to force it into a vessel of our choice, where we can confine and destroy it."

"And the reason we can't just make one of these ourselves is…?" Paige asked.

"The authentic Ethros box is made out of six hundred species of virgin wood and hand-crafted by blind Tibetan monks," Angel clarified.

"In other words, not something we have the time to get together," Paige said, nodding in understanding. "OK, I'll see what I can do."

With that, she closed her eyes and orbed away; she and Angel had looked up some potentially useful magic shops in the local area, but she might be able to find something further afield if she was quick about it…

* * *

  
Standing over the possessed child, Wesley took a deep breath as he prepared to begin the exorcism.

This kind of ritual wasn't something that he'd covered in depth in his training with the Council- possession demons were relatively rare, so specialist courses were set up to deal with them, and Wesley's ambition to serve as an active Watcher to a Slayer meant that he had to prioritise by focusing more on what kind of demons a Watcher would face with a Slayer rather than possessors- but he had a degree of background knowledge, and even field Watchers were required to establish the basic ground rules of certain rituals; he was fairly confident that this could work.

So long as he didn't think about what could happen if things went wrong, he'd be fine…

"Omnis spiritus in munde," he began, shaking a bottle of holy water as the demon sat up in bed. "In nomine dei. Omnis spiritus in …"

"Your Latin sucks ass," the boy said in a deep voice that was clearly the demon.

"I know your tricks," Wesley said, splashing some holy water on the boy to silence him as he turned his attention back to the book in his other hand. "You'll not deter _me_ from what must be done."

" _You_ do something?" the boy said, his voice still demonic; evidently manipulation by using the host had been discarded as an option. "What makes you think you can do anything?"

"In odorem suavitatis," Wesley said, doing his best to ignore the creature in the boy. "Tu autem effugare, diabole. Appropinquabit enim judicium dei."

"You couldn't even 'watch'!" the demon voice said contemptuously, prompting Wesley to pause and look at the boy as he glared mockingly at the ex-Watcher. "Everyone knows you got fired because you couldn't do anything right. Nothing is going to make him proud of you."

"Skimming the surface of my mind… very good," Wesley said, taking a moment to collect himself as he reached over for something to help. "But a mere parlour trick. Here's one for you; how many crosses am I holding up?"

Thrusting a crucifix towards the boy's face, he began to chant again. "Omnis spiritus immunde. In nomine dei."

"All those hours locked up under the stairs and you still weren't good enough," the demon said, now imitating what sounded like Wesley's voice when heard through an answering machine (How was it you always sounded worse when you heard your voice as others did than when you heard it in your own head?). "Not good enough for Daddy, not good enough for the Council…"

"Ominus spiritus…" Wesley began, trying to collect himself only to realise as he spoke that he wasn't in the right place, forcing him to flick back through the text. "Uh, that is to say…"

"Lose your place?" the boy said, the demonic voice back once again. "What makes you think these people want you around any more than the others did?"

"Because I invited him here," Angel said, the vampire walking into the room to glare at the possessed child.

"Then you're stupider than he is," the boy replied

Exchanging a grim glance with Angel, Wesley raised the crucifix and began to chant once more.

"Go ahead, Wesley," the demon said, his voice shifting to Angel's as he spoke. "Tell him why he's a fool to trust you; tell him how you plan to kill him."

"That's not true," Wesley said urgently, looking over at Angel; he had some… concerns… about a vampire of Angel's power and age having that much influence over a Charmed One, but he definitely didn't want Angel _dead_ now that he'd learned what he was…

"Oh no?" the demon said, looking mockingly at Wesley before looking back at Angel. "He's more afraid of you than he is of me."

"I'll show you fear!" Wesley yelled, moving forward with the cross once more, only realising after he'd done it that he'd just damaged the circle keeping the demon contained. Before he knew what was happening, there was a blinding pain in his neck as the cross in his hand struck him in the neck, leaving Angel to haul him away as the demon laughed mockingly at them…

The part of Wesley's mind that wasn't focused on the pain cursed the progress of this ritual; why did demons have to be so _stubborn_?


	50. Lesser of Two Evils

"That was too close," Angel said, looking firmly at Wesley as Paige A applied a bandage to the ex-Watcher's neck.

"I let my guard down; it won't happen again," Wesley said, his hand impatiently tapping the crucifix on the table.

"You're not going back in there," Angel said firmly.

"Angel-!" Wesley began.

"It's too dangerous," Angel said, looking resolutely at the Watcher. "He could have killed you, Wesley."

"And my son?" Seth asked, from his position behind Wesley. "What about him?"

Angel was saved from responding when the table began to shake, a bag of marbles that Paige had brought for Ryan rolling out of their bag and moving around, coming to a stop to spell out the words 'SAVE ME'.

"Angel," Wesley said, looking grimly at him, "we don't have a choice."

For a moment, Angel thought about waiting for Paige to get back, but decided against it; even if Paige could heal the wound, considering her lack of emotional connection to Wesley and the delicate location of the injury, Wesley had already slipped up once, and they couldn't risk it again.

There was only one option left if they were going to save Ryan…

Before Wesley could protest, Angel had torn a strip from the nearest kitchen towel, wrapped it around his hand, and grabbed the crucifix; it would burn eventually, but the towel should mitigate the damage until he'd done what he was trying to do.

"Time to end this," he said grimly, walking back towards the bedroom as Paige entered the room carrying a large wooden box.

"They only had-" she began.

"Get it ready," Angel said as he continued his walk; if Paige had something that she thought would work, that was enough for Angel at this time.

"You really think you can save me?" the demon in Ryan said, looking mockingly at him. "You killed your sister-!"

"Abrenuntias satanae!" Angel said, refusing to even listen to the thing before him talking about Kathy as he laid the crucifix on Ryan's chest, barely registering Wesley providing a translation as he fought through the pain his hand to complete the ritual. "Et omnibus operibus eus! Omnibus pompis eus! Exorcie te! Omnis spiritus immunde! Adaperiae!"

With that final command, Angel assumed his vampire face as he glared at the demon; his hand might be burning, but he wanted to make it clear to this thing that he wouldn't accept any attempt for it to remain where it was. "Now get the hell out!"

Only able to step back and watch as Ryan writhed in agony on the bed, Angel's mood lifted as Ryan began to glow, only for the light that burst from the boy's body to hit the box that Paige and Wesley were holding between them and shatter it before it raced through the apartment and vanished from view up the stairs. Pausing only to confirm that Ryan had assumed his human appearance once more, Angel hurried after his friends as Seth and Paige A ran into the bedroom to embrace their son, Paige and Wesley already moving to the upper levels of the building.

As he reached the office, Angel found Wesley crouched on the floor examining a small sample of yellow slime with a tongue depressor, Paige holding a short sword as she anxiously stood behind, scanning her surroundings for any sign of danger.

"Anything?" he asked, as his girlfriend and the ex-Watcher looked up at him.

"No," Wesley said, shaking his head as he indicated the slime he'd discovered. "It definitely came this way, but if it was here it would have taken me as a host by now."

"I take it this isn't the kind of exorcism where we sent it to Hell after it got kicked out of the kid?" Paige asked hopefully.

"Unfortunately not," Wesley said, looking back at her. "Which reminds me, what happened there? An Ethros box should have held it-"

"I checked every shop I knew in the immediate are for an Ethros box, but the best I could do was a Shorshack box created by mute Chinese nuns," Paige explained. "I knew that it was a risk, but I thought that the thing might at least hold the Ethros long enough for us to work out another way of stopping it; I didn't want to wait longer than I had to."

"Fair enough," Wesley said, nodding in understanding at her before he looked over at Angel. "Maybe we should keep the Andersons here for a while; it may attempt to possess the boy again."

"I don't think so," Angel said, his manner thoughtful as he consider the available possibilities. "Not right away."

"What are you thinking?" Wesley asked.

"Well, it had to expel a lot of energy to escape like this," Angel said, turning his attention back to his friends. "It'll need time to recharge."

"You're thinking the demon has taken on corporeal form," Wesley said.

"So… we can actually _kill_ it now?" Paige said, looking more optimistic at the news that their enemy was no longer hiding behind an innocent.

"If we can find it," Wesley said.

"And… can we?" Paige asked, looking at Angel as he walked over to a nearby cabinet to pick out some weapons.

"Shouldn't be too hard, anyway," Angel said. "After the energy it expended in escaping, it needs to absorb certain elements that can only be taken in if it manifests physically, so if we find it, we can kill it. We just need to find a suitable hostile environment; somewhere damp, probably returning to primordial volcanic basalt for his regeneration."

"Which means…?" Paige asked.

"Sea caves!" Wesley said in understanding.

"Exactly," Angel said, nodding at the Watcher. "Paige, get the Andersons home and keep an eye on them; Wes and I'll take care of the Ethros."

"Gotcha," Paige said, walking over to give Angel a brief kiss. "Be careful."

"Always am," Angel replied, the two exchanging a brief smile.

* * *

  
Walking along the cave that he and Wesley had tracked the Ethros to- based on a quick check of the city maps, it seemed like the best bet to investigate the closest cave to the office- Angel tried to focus on the issue of finding the demon rather than discuss some of the things the creature had brought up; he wasn't going to take a demon's word for anything unless he absolutely had to, and this wasn't the kind of circumstances where he felt like he'd have to.

"We're close," Angel said, examining a slim line of mucus on the wall. "Come on."

"Angel," Wesley said, prompting the vampire to turn and look at the Watcher. "Before we go any further… I just wanted to reassure you- inasmuch as we will be fighting side-by-side- what that demon said before…"

"I know you're not planning to kill me, Wesley," Angel said, guessing what the other man was talking about. "But you're willing to, and that's good."

It was a strange thing to say, but it was the truth; as much as he had faith that the Halliwells would do whatever it took to get him back if he ever reverted back to Angelus again, even if they'd taken so many precautions to prevent that happening again, having someone on their team who would be willing to kill Angelus as the first option made a difference.

"Now come on," he said, indicating the cave ahead of them, putting that issue aside for later.

After a few more moments of walking, they finally reached what could only be the Ethros demon they were looking for, now manifested in corporeal form. Where the creature had resembled a human with a bad skin condition and an elongated chin when it manifested in Ryan, in its natural state the demon had greyish skin with a great deal of facial wrinkles and sharp teeth, wearing a long dark robe with a hood that nevertheless failed to cover its face or yellow eyes.

"You," the demon said, in a voice similar to the one used when it manifested in Ryan.

"Didn't think it was over, did you?" Angel said, moving slightly ahead of Wesley; if this thing attacked, it was better that he take point than Wesley did.

"You are a fool," the Ethros said. "You think to destroy me? You're dealing with forces beyond your comprehension."

"Yeah?" Angel said, raising his axe. "Well, it's a hobby of mine."

"You great… putrescent… _bully_!" Wesley said, glaring indignantly at the demon. "Pick on an innocent child? You think you're impressive?"

"I am Ethros," the demon said, glaring at Wesley. "I corrupted the spirits of men before they had speech to name me. The child was but the last among tens of thousands, one more pure heart to corrupt, one more soul to suck dry."

"Well, chalk up one exciting failure," Wesley said, looking scathingly at the demon. "You didn't get that boy's soul."

"What soul?" the Ethros said.

Angel could only stare at that news.

Demons might lie by their very nature, but the Ethros didn't say it like it was bragging; he said that as though he was… just stating a fact…

"Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is?" the Ethros said, removing its hood as it stepped forward, revealing a bald head. "Nothing! That's what I found in the boy. No conscience, no fear, no humanity, just a black void. I couldn't control him. I couldn't get out. I never even manifested until you brought me forth. I just sat there and watched as he destroyed everything around him. Not from a belief in evil, not for any reason at all…"

The demon actually looked scared as it spoke. "That boy's mind was the blackest Hell I've ever known."

"The marbles…" Angel said, raising the axe slightly as he realised what had happened. "That was you?"

"When he slept, I could whisper in him," the Ethros said, nodding in acknowledgement of Angel's assessment. "I tried to get him to end his life, even if it meant ending mine."

"You sleepwalked him in front of the car?" Angel said.

"I had given up… hope," the Ethros said, smiling briefly at the idea of it having hope before it continued in a solemn manner. "I know you bring death; I do not fear it. The only thing I have ever feared is in that house."

Angel would have killed the Ethros anyway- even if it was scared of what it had found in Ryan, it was still proud of what it had accomplished- but the idea of a demon _asking_ to be killed…

"Angel," Wesley said, his tone anxious, "he's with his family. We have to hurry."

"Yes, you do," the Ethros said.

The satisfaction it displayed in that statement ended Angel's doubts for him. Drawing back his axe, he slashed out at the Ethros, severing its head from his neck, before he and Wesley started to run back towards the cave exit.

"Paige!" he yelled, hoping that this call would be enough; they were too far into the caves for cellphones, but Paige had been practising her sensitivity. "We have a problem!"

"What?" Paige asked, suddenly appearing alongside him and Wesley as they hurried towards the cave exit. "Did you get the demon?"

"The demon isn't the problem; _Ryan_ is the problem!" Wesley yelled.

"I'm- _Ryan_?" Paige repeated. "But he's-"

"Soulless, apparently," Angel said grimly. "The demon didn't say how it was possible, but that thing was too obviously scared to be lying; whatever it found in Ryan was enough to make it _ask_ me to kill it, and even try to put Ryan in a position where he'd die so that it could get out."

"So… you're saying that the kid did all that stuff?" Paige said, staring in ever-increasing horror at her friends. "Oh my God…"

"Yeah, and we left him with his family free to do what he wants for the first time in God knows _how_ long…" Angel said, looking anxiously at his girlfriend. "Can you get us back there?"

"Here goes," Paige said, grabbing him and Wesley by the shoulder and focusing as the familiar orbs surrounded them…

* * *

  
Reappearing in front of the Anderson house, Angel didn't hesitate; hurrying towards the house- grateful that he'd already been invited in for the dinner earlier- Angel immediately found Ryan in the main hall, a wedge under the door that Angel had earlier identified as Seth and Paige's bedroom and a can in Ryan's hand that smelled strongly of gasoline to the vampire, the young boy pouring its contents all over the floor of his sister's room even as his parents hammered on the door for his attention.

"NO!" Angel yelled, diving towards Ryan as the boy tossed a match to the ground, Stephanie waking up with a scream at the sight of the fire. Grabbing the boy, Angel practically tossed him away, looking back only to confirm that Wesley had grabbed him as Paige ran to set the parents loose before he dived into the childrens' room. Grabbing Stephanie in his arms, Angel turned and leapt out of the window- the fire on the floor was becoming too hot for him to go back that way-, curling up and rolling to protect Stephanie from the worst of the glass before he stood back up, looking grimly back at the now-burning house.

They might have saved an innocent life, but even if they explained the situation to Darryl, the Andersons were never going to be a family again; Ryan was almost certainly going to an institution of some kind once social services took a look at his background, and there was very little likelihood of _that_ resulting in anything good happening to him…

 _That's life, I guess_ , Angel mused, adjusting his grip on Stephanie as he walked around the house to join the others at the front door. _All we can do sometimes is mitigate the fallout…_


	51. Rise of the Necromancer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are, looking at Wyatt's Wiccaning; a few confrontations with the Necromancer will be skipped over because they didn't change much from original events, and obvious Paige and Phoebe's relationships are different from what they were in the show, as Paige has no reason to even think about dating Miles (Assuming they'd ever meet in the first place) and Phoebe's tentatively exploring something with Doyle, but it's not like that makes that much of a difference

After the grim nature of their previous case, Angel had to admit that he was almost looking forward to this latest family gathering; when cases concluded with them having to lock a small boy away in a mental institution, it was hard to feel positive.

He knew that it was the only thing they could do for Ryan short of killing him, and Darryl had helped convince the Andersons to go along with the proposal to submit Ryan for treatment, but Angel doubted that it would accomplish anything; asylums might have improved from the days where they basically just tortured people to try and drive out non-existent demons, but you couldn't give someone a soul without magic. All they could do was take action to ensure that Ryan couldn't hurt anyone else and hope that, even if the doctors couldn't give him a conscience, they'd be able to 'teach' him how to operate on a level where he wouldn't want to harm other people at the slightest provocation.

Still, with Ryan dealt with, it had given the Halliwells and Angel Investigations the chance to focus on a more personal issue. Piper had been on a large-scale vanquishing spree recently to ensure that there would be no demons in a position to threaten Wyatt's upcoming Wiccaning; his and Paige's latest date had been interrupted when her sisters needed her help to vanquish the leader of these 'Creeper' demons that were apparently the last significant threat that could take action at this point, although the actual vanquish had apparently been quick enough once they summoned the demon to them.

Even if Angel wasn't exactly keen on seeing Paige's grandmother again- he still felt like the woman only tolerated him rather than actually accepting his role in her granddaughter's life- he couldn't deny that it would be good to know that Wyatt was safe from some less tangible dangers he might encounter. Doyle was acting a bit 'mother-hen-esque' while defending his actions on the grounds that he was protecting his namesake- even if he was obviously embarrassed when Phoebe jokingly referred to him as 'Uncle' Doyle given their new relationship- and even Wesley was interested in the ceremony despite his relative lack of family ties, albeit from a somewhat academic perspective.

Still, for the moment, he, Doyle and Wesley could afford to relax; Piper and Leo were summoning the Halliwells' grandmother in the main living area while Paige and Phoebe kept an eye on Wyatt upstairs, but it had been decided that the vampire, the half-Brachen, and the Watcher could just wait in the conservatory for the moment, appreciating the view without worrying about Angel's health in such an exposed area considering the relatively cloudy day.

"So," Wesley said, looking uncertainly over at Angel and Doyle, "when they bring their grandmother back, how does she… well… manifest?"

"Looks perfectly normal, far as I could tell," Doyle replied, shrugging nonchalantly at the memory of his and Angel's last meeting with 'Grams' during the fairy-tale crisis. "Said some stuff about how she couldn't stay for long, but she didn't specify why; could be anything from her body not being able to hold together that long to the higher-ups not liking her hanging around like that."

"It's easier just to think of her as a distant relative who shows up now and again," Angel said, looking at Wesley with a pointed stare. "By the way, she doesn't talk much about what it's like wherever she is, so don't ask; it's not worth it."

The sound of Piper's voice followed by a glow from the main living area was the first sign that the three men in the conservatory had that the grandmother in question had arrived, prompting Angel to get up and walk into the room, his friends just behind him, as Paige and Phoebe came down the stairs to hand Wyatt to his mother.

"Grams," Piper said, smiling at her grandmother, "meet the next generation of Halliwells, baby Wyatt."

"Wyatt?" Penny said, smiling as she took the baby from Piper. "That's a silly name for a girl, isn't it?"

"Grams," Piper said, after exchanging a brief glance with her husband. "It's a boy. Look at the outfit."

"What?" Penny said, her expression faltering at this clearly unexpected news.

"You didn't know?" Paige said, looking at her in surprise.

"Well, no, I-I mean I just assumed it was a…" Penny began, looking awkwardly between the baby and her grandchildren. "What went wrong?"

"Wrong?" Leo repeated, looking at the dead woman with no idea how to react.

"Oh-oh, well, I don't mean _wrong_ wrong," Penny said, as she handed Wyatt to his father. "It's just that we've always had girls."

"And now you have a son," Doyle said, smiling over at her in a reassuring manner. "Nothing wrong with breaking tradition, eh?"

"Right…" the old woman said, looking sceptically at the Irish seer before she looked back at Piper. "Well, um, OK, well, we've got a lot of work to do before I perform the wiccaning…"

"If you're talking about eliminating anything that could attack the spirits of the Matriarchs, don't worry; we've spent the last few weeks eliminating anything that could mount an assault on us at this time," Wesley said, smiling at Penny as she turned to look at him in confusion.

"And… you are?" she asked, clearly puzzled at the new arrival.

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, formerly of the Watcher's Council; Angel offered me a job after… the Council and I parted ways," Wesley said, still smiling at Penny as he held out his hand to her, only to lower it when she simply stared at him in a bemused manner.

"He's been pretty helpful, actually," Phoebe said, smiling hopefully at her grandmother. "He helped us work out how to defeat a Haxil beast that was trying to raise an army, and… well, he's good with researching stuff that's not in the Book."

"Oh," Penny said, still looking at Wesley as though trying to work him out, before she shook her head and looked at Piper. "Have you dealt with the Necromancer?"

"Who?" Piper asked.

"Hold on; doesn't a Necromancer refer to someone who controls the dead?" Paige asked, looking anxiously over at Angel. "As in-?"

"The one I'm talking about focused more on absorbing spirits rather than controlling corpses even when he was alive himself; your… boyfriend… will be fine," Penny said, waving a dismissive hand at the half-Whitelighter and the vampire before she looked over at Piper. "In any case, we should move fast; the last time he attacked was during your mother's wiccaning, and we can't take any chance on that happening again, so chop-chop."

As Penny practically herded Piper up the stairs, Paige and Phoebe exchanged brief glances before they followed their sister and grandmother, leaving Leo to sigh awkwardly as he looked over at the other three men.

"As you can see, there's a reason we don't summon the dead on a regular basis," the Whitelighter said.

"Is she… always like that?" Wesley asked, looking uncertainly up the stairs.

"Mostly, yeah," Angel said. "Last time she showed up, Paige spent most of her time defending me to that woman's prejudices even when we were in the middle of a crisis, and Piper started defaulting to what Penny wanted to do rather than take the initiative herself; she's powerful, but she sometimes doesn't seem to accept that things have moved on."

"That's one of the problems with her dying when she did," Leo said, looking solemnly at his friends and sisters-in-law. "She never actually got the chance to see her granddaughters develop their independent skills, and there's only so much of what they do on a daily basis that she's aware of up there, so whenever she gets here she defaults to taking control as the most experienced witch despite what they've accomplished."

"Parents," Doyle said, shaking his head with a wistful smile that only partly concealed the pain in his eyes at the memory of his recent encounter with Axtius. "Are they _ever_ satisfied with what they get?"

"Actually, my parents were fine with how I lived my life…" Leo said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked at the other men before he sighed. "But yeah, I know what you mean; in my… line of work, you see a few people who just shouldn't be parents, whether because they can't cope, they don't want to deal with it, or they just aren't ready yet."

"Well… let's just focus on the essentials right now, shall we?" Wesley said, an awkward expression on the ex-Watcher's face that reminded Angel of some of the things he'd heard the Ethros demon talking about when Wesley had been attempting to exorcise it; evidently he shared Angel and Doyle's history of having issues with his father.

"Yeah, the last thing we want is to get their grandmother started on her issues with men," Leo said, shaking his head grimly as he looked up at the attic. "I think it ties back to her former husbands; she actually cursed her old wedding ring to stop her getting married again after the last time."

"She never had much luck with men?" Wesley said in surprise. "I thought I heard once that she was married four times?"

"Doesn't that say it all?" Doyle noted.

"Ah… good point," Wesley admitted after a moment's thought, nodding briefly at Doyle in acknowledgement of the Iris demon's point, before he sighed and glanced up at the ceiling. "It's too bad that we can't simply ward the house against ghostly intrusion like this Necromancer fellow; I looked, but there's just no way to adjust those wards to let some ghosts in and keep out what we want kept out…"

"Well, we've got a target right now; let's just focus on making sure this can't do anything to my namesake's Wiccaning and take it from there," Doyle said, smiling the smile he always had when he thought about Wyatt as his namesake before his expression became grimmer. "Anything that can tackle the dead ain't exactly somethin' to take lightly, after all…"

* * *

  
"Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but… did you get the impression she was trying too hard to focus on vanquishing that guy?" Paige asked Angel, as she sat beside her boyfriend on the couch in the main living area an hour or so later, the better to get away from the current tension in the attic after they had vanquished the Necromancer; Piper was so caught up in arguing about the Wiccaning with her grandmother that the rest of the family had decided to slip away, Angel and Paige staying and the manor in case they were needed while Phoebe headed off to work and Doyle and Wesley checked the office in case something had come up. "Don't get me wrong, I can accept that the Necromancer's not someone we want hanging around; I just think that the way she acted was…"

"A bit too much like how Phoebe reacted to Cole or you reacted to Angelus?" Angel suggested, looking at her with a slightly grim smile; he might not have been present at the actual vanquish- which had apparently consisted simply of the grandmother throwing a potion at their target- but what he'd heard of the vanquish from Paige had painted an interesting picture.

"You noticed her reaction when questioned on that topic too, huh?" Paige asked, looking at him with a slight smile.

"She _did_ seem to make it personal a bit too quickly," Angel acknowledged.

"And that's just the _start_ of what tipped me off…" Paige said, sighing as she shook her head in recollection. "I mean, the amount of detail in his Book of Shadows entry could just be her being thorough, but all that stuff about his likes and dislikes just can't be _that_ useful for killing him…"

"That's not important," someone said from behind the vampire and the witch, the two turning around to see Penny Halliwell standing firmly behind the couch. "The point is that he's only able to go after spirits and we've managed to deal with the situation before he got the chance to attack the Wiccaning; we have a ceremony to prepare for."

"And you're going to get over the whole 'It's a Boy' thing?" Paige asked, standing up to look pointedly at her grandmother. "Seriously, it's not like all guys are automatically bad people; in case you haven't been keeping an eye on things up there, Angel's going to a lot of effort to make up for his past, and Doyle nearly died to save a _lot_ of people when he couldn't have known I'd even be able to help him-"

"Relying on men to do the noble thing in the moment in the spur of the moment is one thing, but giving them access to _our_ power is something else," Penny said, glaring at Paige. "We haven't had boys in the family for over three hundred years-"

"Things change," Paige countered, glaring at the woman; being their grandmother might cut Penny some slack with Piper and Phoebe, but Paige didn't have years of growing up with this woman to hold her back. "Or did you miss the fact that we have a friendly vampire, a half-demon seer, and a Watcher in the game as well?"

"Oh, trust me, people upstairs were _not_ happy when we realised who your new seer was," Grams countered. "Forget trusting men, how can you trust _that_ -?"

"Doyle is not a _thing_ , and it's not the same as it was with Cole; he doesn't have any actual powers to serve as any kind of corrupting influence… and what the hell are you doing down here when you have a wiccaning to prepare for?" Angel asked, looking at Penny with a more pointed stare before he realised the answer to his question. "You're still refusing to do it, aren't you?"

"I just told you-" Penny began.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to prepare for this wiccaning the longest way you can?" Angel said, still glaring at the ghost.

"I am simply-" Grams began.

"No, Angel's right," Piper said, walking in to glare at her deceased grandmother. "You don't even seem to want to _hold_ Wyatt; what's that about?"

"I… Grams began, apparently preparing to protest once again, before she sighed and shook her head, her expression showing a frustrated resignation. "Oh, this is all my fault; maybe if I'd lived longer, been around longer, maybe things would've worked out the way they were supposed to…"

"'Supposed to'?" Angel repeated, glaring at the ghost.

"With this," Penny said. "Wyatt."

Angel couldn't believe it; sexism was meant to have died out years ago, and this woman just seemed to be unable to get over her own preconceptions…

"Oh, you mean, because he's not a girl?" Piper said, looking grimly at her grandmother.

"Piper," Grams said, looking at her in a frustratingly condescending manner as though she was disappointed at her granddaughter's stubbornness, "you know as well as I do that the charmed line is supposed to be led by women, not men."

"Who says?" Piper countered.

"Tradition says," Penny replied. "Destiny says. Tell me that you didn't hope to have a little girl, _expect_ to have a little girl, just like you foresaw?"

"Well, of course, but so what?" Piper responded.

"So what is something went wrong," Penny said; the most disturbing part was that she actually seemed to believe what she was saying. "Terribly wrong. This is not the baby you were supposed to have-"

"Yeah, and Angel should be something that kills human beings rather than saving them and Wesley should be working for the Watcher's Council," Paige said, looking at her grandmother in exasperation. "Sometimes destiny takes a few knocks and we just have to adapt; tradition's good, but if it doesn't work, _change it_."

"And besides, if we're talking about how things were 'meant' to be based on the last major future we saw, that was _also_ the future where Prue was alive and witches were burned at the stake; I _think_ we can safely say losing that future wasn't a completely bad thing," Piper pointed out.

"I'm just worried about the family," Penny said firmly. "We don't know what to expect-"

"Which is why we shouldn't treat him any differently and do the ceremony," Piper said firmly. "At the very least, he deserves _that_."

"I'm sorry, Piper," Penny said, looking almost solemn as she looked at her granddaughter. "I can't."

"Excuse me?" Piper said, looking at her grandmother in exasperation. "OK, I was willing to accept that you'd have trouble with this, but refusing to bless your grandson because he's a _boy_? You know, this isn't about him or our legacy; this is all about _you_!"

"Piper, you don't understand-" Penny began.

"There's nothing hard about this," Angel said firmly. "You don't want to bless your grandson because you don't like what he'll become."

"What he'll- this is all because he's going to be a _man_?" Piper said, her glare intensifying as she stared at her grandmother.

"Men cannot be trusted with magic," Penny said. "They're weak and evil will-"

"I spent my entire human life feeling like a disappointment to my father," Angel said, looking firmly at Penny. "In the end, it was easier to live _down_ to his expectations than to try and prove that he was wrong, and that ended with me dead in an alley; do you really think that your attitude is going to help Wyatt?"

"Seriously, you're going with 'all men are evil'?" Piper said, unable to believe what she was hearing from her grandmother. "What about Leo?"

"Leo… well, he's an angel-" Penny began.

"Yeah, all I'm getting is the fact that you hate men," Paige said grimly, interrupting her grandmother's rant.

"I don't _trust_ men; there's a difference," Penny said. "They're weak, and evil will eventually win out-"

"Angel's been fighting his demon for the last hundred or so years, and he only gave into it because of outside circumstances that _nobody_ could have expected," Paige added, glaring at her grandmother. "And don't even _think_ about using Cole as an example; the guy was dealing with a ridiculous amount of stress and powers that drove Angel nuts when he had them for a few _minutes_ -!"

"OK, let's just… stop this now, please?" Piper said, holding up her hands and looking between her youngest sister and her grandmother, waiting for them to stop before she turned to glare at Penny. "You know what? Forget the Wiccaning; you're too consumed by your own bitterness to bless my son with anything, so considering his father and his _very_ protective aunts and uncles- one of whom is his namesake _despite_ being a demon, by the way- we'll take our chances without-!"

Piper's angry rant was cut short when a young man in a dark jacket and curly dark hair suddenly appeared on the stairs and hurled a beam of light at the eldest witch, sending her flying across the room before he spun around to fire similar blasts at Angel and Paige. The vampire and the part-Whitelighter dived for safety behind the nearest couch, but Penny's yell of defiance was interrupted when something pulled her away from her position. Looking over the top of the couch, Angel saw an older man with greying hair in a fancy shirt wrap his arms around Penny before they both vanished, leaving Piper to blow up the younger man before he could do the same.

"Necromancer?" Angel asked, glancing between Paige and Piper as he indicated the area where their grandmother had been.

"Necromancer," Piper confirmed, groaning in frustration. "And I thought we just dealt with that guy…"


	52. Purifying Penny's Issues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I jump over a few scenes here, but that's the way the narrative worked out (Particularly since the Necromancer is one of those foes where only the right spell could do anything to him, making it unnecessary for anyone but the Halliwells to be there when he's defeated); I hope the additions I have planned for later chapters make up for it

"Well, let's face it," Piper said, shaking her head in frustration as she finished briefing Leo, Doyle, Wesley and Phoebe on what had just happened to their grandmother, "Grams would not be in this position if she hadn't sent us after the guy in the first place."

"Not helpful," Phoebe said, glaring over at Piper. "We have to summon her back here fast."

"We can't," Leo said. "The necromancer will follow and you don't have a way to stop him."

"What about that spell or potion you mentioned that lets you vanquish a ghost?" Angel asked, looking over at Phoebe.

"Unfortunately, that only works if it's _said_ by a ghost…" Phoebe began, before she trailed off in a moment of realisation. "Which we _have_ right now!"

"So long as we can get to her in time," Doyle added, before he looked over at Paige, Angel and Piper. "And how did this guy manage to get close enough to grab her, anyway?"

"Things came up; leave it at that," Angel said, looking pointedly at the half-demon.

"OK, but even if we can get Grams to cast the spell, that doesn't help us actually get to him," Piper pointed out. "I mean, he didn't get this kind of reputation by being stupid; we need something to catch him off-guard."

"We could try mint jelly and Clark Gable movies," Paige suggested with a smirk. "I mean, according to the Book, that's something he likes…"

"Oh my God…" Phoebe said, eyes widening in realisation. " _That's_ why she's so obsessed with him!"

"Hold on; are you saying that your grandmother was the Necromancer's lover?" Wesley said, looking at Phoebe in surprise. "That's…"

"Disgusting?" Paige said. "I mean, he _was_ evil at the time, right?"

"Based on everything we've got here, yeah," Piper said, looking back over the Book for a moment before she looked back up. "Anyway, we've got a plan now; all we need is to get Grams back and get her in a position to cast the spell."

"Excellent!" Wesley said, smiling at the sisters. "When do we-?"

"Just the three of us," Paige said, indicating herself and her sisters. "We've got a better chance of dealing with anything the Necromancer might throw at us if things get ugly, we can't be _sure_ that his abilities won't have some effect on Angel or Leo if we attack him on his home turf, and… look, no offence, but if he's a ghost-"

"There's nothing that Doyle or I could actually _do_ to him," Wesley finished, shaking his head at the reminder of his relative shortcomings; he might have a great deal of knowledge to contribute when it came to the wider demon species, but against a magical being like the Necromancer Wesley's ability to contribute was limited.

"Look, we'll try and be quick about it; just… keep an eye on Wyatt while we're working, OK?" Piper said, looking over at her husband and son with a warm smile before she and her sisters began to scan through the Book of Shadows. Stuck for anything else to do, the four men exchanged glances and walked out of the attic and back downstairs, sitting down around the living room and staring awkwardly at each other.

"The worst think about bein' involved with the most powerful witches of all time?" Doyle said, breaking the silence as he looked over at Angel and Leo with a slight smile. "The moments when you know you can't actually do anything to help 'em out."

"Oh yeah," Angel said, nodding in agreement.

"I can't argue with that," Leo confirmed, looking up at the attic with a sigh. "I mean, even when I had Piper's powers, I wasn't that much use; there's only so much you can do when you're used to serving as background support only…"

"You had Piper's powers?" Wesley asked curiously.

"A couple of incidents involving our powers being switched; the last time was something Wyatt did from the womb, apparently trying to settle an argument we were having," Leo explained, shrugging slightly at Wesley's surprised expression. "It wasn't exactly easy, and even if I managed to adapt to them in time to deal with the siren that we were currently up against, it doesn't change the fact that I'm not a natural fighter; I can offer advice, but except for rare occasions, there's only so much I can do once the spells start flying."

"At least you all _have_ some kind of talent…" Wesley said, staring up the ceiling with a frustrated sigh. "All I have is a load of training that failed me when I actually had to use it-"

"Because you were dealing with a very damaged young woman," Leo interjected, looking over at Wesley. "I checked in with some of my contacts after you joined us, Wesley; you did your best, but your Slayer had authority issues with anyone other than her parents even before you arrived, and everything that happened just made them worse. You couldn't have predicted what your Slayer was going to do, and what happened was not your fault; no Watcher could have prepared for a situation like that."

"Trust me on this, Wes," Angel said, smiling over at the ex-Watcher, "Leo might not be a fighter, but he doesn't lie about stuff like that either."

The sound of Penny Halliwell's voice, followed closely after by a male tone that Angel quickly recognised as the Necromancer, briefly distracted the four men from their conversation, but after exchanging glances they just sat in silence and listened as intently as they could; there was nothing they could do against the ghost that the Necromancer was at present, but that didn't stop them wanting to make sure that the witches they cared about were safe. Angel in particular was fairly sure he heard the Halliwells chanting some kind of spell at the same time as Penny began to chant what sounded like the ritual that would summon the Halliwell matriarchs, but the distance and the dual speakers made it hard to clearly pick out any words before they both stopped, followed by Penny making a speech of some sort that concluded with the kind of scream that Angel had only heard when something was being banished.

"So…" Doyle said, a few moments after the scream had ceased and there was no sign of further loud noises from the attic, "take it that's them dealt with the ghostly pain in the neck?"

"Well, I don't hear anything that sounds like him up there, so I think we can assume so, yeah," Angel said, smiling slightly around at his friends, only for the smile to become more confident as Paige and Phoebe came downstairs, grinning broadly at the four men.

"All good," Phoebe said, grinning as she sat down beside Doyle and gave him an enthusiastic one-armed hug. "The Necromancer's gone, Grams confirmed how important we are to her, and she recognised that her issues were just going to affect our lives if she kept that up."

"So… she'll perform the ceremony?" Leo asked, looking optimistically between Paige and Phoebe.

"She'll perform the ceremony," Paige confirmed. "She and Piper are just straightening out some of the last little details now that everything's in order."

"At least we had a simple one, eh?" Doyle said, smiling hopefully at the sisters before he fully registered Paige's expression. "Not that simple, eh?"

"Well, Grams did admit that she still loved the guy before she vanquished him to save us; kind of colours the mood, when you get down to it," Paige said, reaching over to give Angel's hand a squeeze that seemed to almost be more about reassuring herself rather than anything else.

"If I've learned anything over the last few years, it's that life is always complicated," Leo pointed out. "I mean, I spent my time before I was officially assigned as your Whitelighter pretty much living completely in my assignments, moving from one charge to the next depending on the demands of the situation, and then I started trying to make a life with you here and…"

He shrugged. "Well, you can't say it hasn't been interesting."

"To say the least," Angel agreed, smiling over at Paige. "I was living on the streets a couple of years ago, and now I'm fighting demons, dating a witch, and running a detective agency; it might be complicated, but at least I'm doing something with myself."

"And sometimes magic isn't the only source of our problems," Phoebe added, shaking her head in reflection. "Real life can be a bitch without a single spell…"

"I thought you were enjoying your work?" Wesley asked, looking at Phoebe in surprise.

"Oh, I'm enjoying it all right, but the columnist thing's already more complicated than I expected; I'm branching out in terms of what I'm dealing with, my boss is planning to leave for China for a few months as part of some business thing and he was one of the major supporters of my current column, so now I'm left wondering if I've got enough credibility to keep the new direction going on my own…" Phoebe said, shaking her head before she smiled as she glanced over at Doyle. "Still, at least my personal relationships are a bit easier now."

"I'm easier?" Doyle said, looking at her in surprise.

"You might be half-demon, but you're not naturally evil, you're getting better at accepting yourself, and you already know pretty much everything about my life so I don't have to lie to you about what I'm doing when I have to bail mid-date," Phoebe explained. "I call that a win, wouldn't you?"

Doyle simply smiled awkwardly but gratefully at Phoebe, clearly touched at her defence of him despite the deceit that had started their relationship.

"Anyway," Paige said, standing up and looking at them all with a grin, "now that we've got the post-battle brooding out of the way, maybe we could focus on the wiccaning?"

"We?" Wesley repeated in surprise. "As in-?"

"Hey, we've got my boyfriend, Wyatt's namesake, and a guy who's helping us fight evil here; just because you're not biologically related to him doesn't mean you don't qualify as family," Paige said, looking at Wesley with a reassuring smile. "You all know about magic and you'll be helping him stay on the right side; if that doesn't entitle you to be here, I don't know what does."

"Well…" Wesley said, smiling at her with an embarrassed grin. "I would be… honoured."

"Goes for all of us," Doyle said, as Angel simply smiled in response. "Do we… need to do anything?"

"Just show up and say something when you get your cue; Grams is pretty much the only one who _needs_ to say anything significant," Phoebe explained.

* * *

  
A short while later, the Halliwells, Leo, Angel, Doyle and Wesley were gathered in the attic, the whole room illuminated by candles. Piper held Wyatt, who was now dressed in a white Wiccaning outfit, while Penny stood in front of the Book of Shadows, looking at her great-grandson with a new warmth about her manner.

"You know," she said after a moment's thought, "I think he looks a little like your grandfather."

"Which is a good thing?" Wesley asked, looking slightly anxiously at the ghost-witch.

"Oh yes," Penny said with a reassuring smile. "He was a good man."

"Nice to know," Phoebe said.

"Shall we?" Piper asked.

Penny simply nodded in response before she turned her attention to the Book in front of her. "I call forth from space and time, matriarchs from the Halliwell line, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, our family's spirit without end, to gather now in this sacred place, and help us bring this child to grace."

Various white lights had begun to assemble around Penny as she spoke, but it was only when she uttered that final statement that the lights manifested as various spectral figures, standing at the other side of the attic, all more intangible than the original 'ghost' but nevertheless present, wearing long dresses/robes and looking at the living people in the attic with solemn smiles.

"The next generation has been born into our family, our legacy," Penny said, turning to address the new arrivals before she accepted Wyatt from Piper, looking at him in a thoughtful manner for a moment before she spoke again. "We pledge to be with this child, this beautiful boy always. Apart but never separate, free but never alone. He is one of us and because of that, we will bless him with all the goodness that we are. Welcome to the family, Wyatt Allen Matthew Halliwell." She paused to kiss Wyatt on the cheek before speaking the last lines. "Blessed be."

"Blessed be," Piper and Leo added.

"Blessed be," the rest of the people in the attic repeated (Doyle and Wesley were slightly uncomfortable at their contribution, but Penny and Piper had assured them that it would be valid; Angel had picked up enough over the years to know that he didn't need to worry).

"Take good care of my great-grandson," Penny said, smiling warmly at Piper as she handed Wyatt back to his mother before she stepped back to join the assembled matriarchs, assuming the same intangible appearance as the rest of them before vanishing into white light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about how I jumped over the actual confrontation with the Necromancer, but there was really nothing different from what happened in canon and no reason for anyone new to be there, so I decided to focus on what was relevant.
> 
> If it helps, coming up next, Angel will deal with a _very_ interesting threat from what would have been 'his' show…


	53. Fire and Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My latest 'Angel' rewrite, which I hope will meet with your approval; shouldn't take too long to identify the original storyline…

Business might have been a bit slower since Wyatt's Wiccaning, but in a way Paige was glad for it; they'd lucked out with a couple of paying clients earlier- albeit tackling more conventional stalker and missing person cases- and with the underworld still reeling from the recent mass assault they'd unleashed while trying to clear the way for Wyatt's wiccaning, even the demons were being quiet for the moment.

As it was, with Angel having started doing irregular patrols of the city to investigate potential vampire activity- most vampires tended to avoid the city due to the Nexus being under the control of good, but there always a few that wandered in if things became quiet enough- Wesley working on his research, and Doyle going on the occasional date with Phoebe, it gave Paige enough time to work on catching up with some of the agency's paperwork. It might be a dull business, but Paige's experience with contracts at her old job at least gave her a better background in putting it all together; Angel and Wesley were currently sorting through some of their assembled demonology texts.

Speaking of her old job, she'd tried to take the opportunity to catch up with some of her old co-workers at a party the previous night, but it hadn't entirely worked out; Angel was just too socially awkward to feel comfortable at a party with so many people who didn't know the truth about his past. To his credit, he'd tried to be more than just the guy in the corner, and his relationship with her at least gave him an excuse to avoid requests to dance without appearing socially awkward, but when you spent over a century going to parties just to kill the guests, Paige supposed that his issues made sense.

Glancing up as the door opened, Paige smiled as Doyle walked in, a broad grin on his face that made it clear that the previous night had gone well. Since fully recovering from his injuries at the Beacon, and with his father continuing to be conspicuous by his absence, Doyle and Phoebe had begun having 'date nights' at least once a week, and it was clear that each of them were enjoying the chance to get to know each other (Paige hadn't asked how close they'd become, but it was something she wasn't going to bring up unless she had to; considering everything Doyle had done for them since he came here, it felt like she was thinking about her siblings having sex if she gave it too much thought).

"All well?" she asked.

"Great," he replied, grinning back at her as he sat down at his own desk. "Good night, good chat, good-"

Paige was saved from having to interrupt him when Doyle suddenly bent over with a yell of pain, clutching at his head as he pressed his face against his desk. Paige automatically moved over to help him even as Angel ran up from his apartment to check on his friend, both of them reaching Doyle's desk at practically the same time.

"Oh God…" Doyle muttered, gasping for air as he sat back in his seat as the vision faded. "That… was _not_ pretty…"

"What?" Paige asked.

"Guy bein' burned alive," Doyle answered, looking shakily over at her. "I actually _felt_ his eyeballs pop…"

"So we're dealing with something after the fact?" Angel asked.

"Most likely," Doyle confirmed. "You'll need to get to some ice factory out near the docks; don't know what did it, but something that hot's got to be trouble…"

"We'll hit it before it know we're there," Paige said, reaching out to place a hand on Angel's arm after running a quick check on ice factories in that area. "Just let Wesley know where we've gone."

Doyle nodded in response as Paige took Angel's arm and orbed out.

* * *

  
As they arrived in the ice factory indicated in Doyle's vision, it didn't take long to identify the location of the corpse that had been the subject of the vision in question; considering that the flesh had been torched, the clothing was in remarkably good condition, only a few singe-marks around the edges.

Crouching down, Angel quickly checked the victim's pockets and soon found a wallet, which contained a business card identifying the victim as a representative of a private security company. Passing the card to Paige, Angel put the wallet back and got back to his feet to examine the room that the victim had apparently been thrown from judging by the way he was lying, revealing a large container full of ice and various bags of the stuff around the shelves.

"People actually ship this stuff?" Paige said, looking at the contents in surprise. "Why would anyone need that much ice?"

"Amateurs trying for long-term storage, frozen food counters, people with a lot of things to keep cool and only so much fridge space…" Angel shrugged uncertainly. "You're asking the wrong guy, Paige; fridges have always been enough for…"

His voice trailed off his he tilted his head slightly, Paige quickly identifying what had caused him to pause; the sound of nearby footsteps. Turning towards a nearby doorway covered with plastic strips, Angel slowly moved towards the door, quickly putting his foot down on a crowbar lying on a nearby box as another figure reached towards it. The new arrival looked mostly human, wearing a long dark coat and trousers with a red trim around the coat, but he had a small ridge of spines running up the middle of his forehead that betrayed his real nature.

"Captain Inferno, I presume?" Angel asked, quickly kicking the bar into his hand and using it to pin the demon against the nearest wall, the sharp end of the bar aimed at his chest. "Close enough; I don't do well near an open flame…"

His voice trailed off as he noticed that the man's sleeve was damaged, a quick look at the area under the tear confirming that his arm had been recently burned by something.

"Only… you didn't burn him, did you?" Angel said in realisation.

"You didn't?" Paige said, looking at the man in surprise. "But… what are you doing here?"

The man stared silently back at the two of them for a moment, before Angel moved the crowbar to point at the man's chest.

"I'm not a big talker," the vampire said firmly. "I usually let others carry the conversation. I am pretty good at putting _these_ through heads, though."

"I am called Tay," the man said after a moment's pause, a slight tremble in his voice. "I'm not from your dimension."

"We guessed that," Paige said grimly.

"I was sent by my people to stop it," Tay explained. "That is my cause here."

"Stop what?" Angel asked, still pressing the bar against his chest.

"The bringer of chaos," Tay responded.

"Which is… what?" Paige asked. "Some kind of demon?"

"More than a mere demon," Tay replied. "It is a vessel of pure rage. It has almost destroyed my world and now it is loose in yours."

"OK, so not great," Paige said briefly. "How do we stop it?"

"You won't be able to," Tay said. "It's stronger than two people. If you and your people wish to live, stay away."

As Tay turned around and walked off into the shadows of the warehouse, Angel and Paige exchanged grim glances with each other.

"We're not trusting him, huh?" Paige asked.

"I think we can both agree that we shouldn't completely trust someone who just shows up and talks about something being dangerous without telling us why," Angel said firmly, before he sighed in frustration as he looked back at where the victim was currently lying. "That said, we can't exactly ignore the evidence we've got either…"

"So, what have we got on hand regarding other dimensions?" Paige asked, deciding to focus on the practical issues at hand.

"We'll have to talk with Wesley about that one," Angel noted, before he glanced at the security card he'd taken from the victim's pocket earlier. "Get back to the office and see what you can dig up on Tay's people and similar deaths; I'll check out this guy's office and see who actually hired him to dig into this."

"You sure?" Paige asked.

"You're better at research and this looks like something done by a natural power rather than magic; I'll be fine," Angel said, giving Paige a brief reassuring smile before he turned to leave. Paige thought about offering to orb, but decided against it; for the moment, they had no reason to require speed, and she knew that Angel sometimes needed to keep on the move himself rather than rely too heavily on her and her sisters.

With faith that Angel would call her if he needed her, Paige orbed away as Angel vanished around a corner…

* * *

  
Arriving at his destination, Angel didn't need long to gain access to the office of their latest victim. After quickly climbing through the window- further confirming that their victim was the owner, although considering that this was his office it might not count as a pure place of residence- a quick search of the office soon revealed a shipping order from the ice company where the victim had been located, along with a large stack of twenties in an envelope that were probably payment, but nothing else that could explain what the guy was doing there…

His thoughts were interrupted when he felt something hot approaching him, sending him flying back as something powerful struck his arm. As he was sent flying, he saw his attacker; a woman with short dark hair and what looked like a tattoo around her left eye, dressed in a tight black leather top and a blood-red velvet coat.

"What are you doing here?" the woman asked, a hint of something in her accent that Angel couldn't immediately identify.

"I could ask you the same question," Angel answered; his arm hurt, but otherwise he felt like he was in fairly good shape…

"Working for _them_ , is that it?" the woman asked. "How much do they pay you to hunt us?"

"I work for myself and I'm here because I'm looking for his killer," Angel said, standing back up and placing a hand on the back of the nearest chair. "Hard to forget, huh? Burnt alive. Know anyone who does that kind of thing?"

Instead of verbally responding, the woman charged towards him. Angel picked up the chair to drive her back, but she simply ducked underneath it and struck the vampire in the chest, sending him crashing through the office door. He was about to try and pick himself up when a telephone started to ring, prompting him to stay down as he listened to the woman say something about a location and time as she walked out of the office.

Angel might not know what this woman was doing here, but the fact that she had a plan and contacts at least suggested that Tay's story had been a lie; 'vessels of pure rage' didn't strike him as being capable of making that sort of plan. Hurrying to the window, Angel cursed as he saw the woman get into a car and drive away; he'd managed to get here with only sewer access, but he wasn't going to be able to pursue someone in a car like this. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cellphone and quickly dialled the Halliwells' number, smiling in relief as Phoebe picked it up.

"Hello?" the middle Halliwell asked.

"Phoebe, it's Angel," the vampire replied. "We're tracking someone who incinerates their victims, but she just got away in a car; I need someone to try and scry for her."

" _On it_ ," Phoebe replied promptly, the sound of paper being unfolded over the phone confirming that she was preparing to go along with his request. " _If she was just there, I can use that to get an impression of where she was and use it to work out where she's going; give me a moment_ …"

"If you're looking for them in the books, I can give you a description," Angel continued, as he heard the clinking of Phoebe removing her scrying crystals, but she suddenly stopped as she began to talk to someone. He couldn't quite hear the conversation, but he heard enough to recognise that Phoebe was talking to Paige even before Paige picked up the phone.

" _Hi there_ ," the part-Whitelighter said.

"Hi," Angel answered. "How's things?"

" _Well, we've managed to find a few similar murders in the past year in other cities_ ," Paige explained. " _Doyle's checking with Darryl about anything else tying them together, but what have you got_?"

"We seem to be dealing with a female, anyway," Angel explained. "Make sure you check up on Tay; I'm fairly sure he knows more than what he's saying. From what she said, she sounds like she's here on some kind of mission, and Tay may be the key to this."

" _What does she look like_?" Paige asked.

"Two raised ridges running down either cheek, violet eyes…" Angel said thoughtfully. "She seemed intelligent; very… attractive, for a demon?"

" _Attractive_?" Paige repeated sharply.

"From an objective perspective; you're _much_ better than she is," Angel stated firmly.

" _Got her_!" Phoebe suddenly yelled, pausing for a moment before she took back the phone. " _She's at the museum_!"

Angel didn't even have the chance to respond before Paige suddenly appeared beside him in a whirl of orbs, the witch grabbing his arm before they vanished again.


	54. Jhiera of Oden Tal

As they reappeared inside the museum, Angel didn't need long to identify where their target was located. The woman was walking along one wall, looking patiently at the other visitors as though waiting for her cue, while Angel and Paige tried to keep a careful eye on her without being observed themselves (Angel reflected that it was probably a good thing that he hadn't followed her in the car; right now she had no reason to think that there was anyone after her). When she finally walked through a door at the back of the museum, the two of them hurried over to follow her through the door, where they found her standing among a selection of artwork out of its frames, arms outstretched as though waiting for something to fall into them.

"You?" the woman said, turning to look indignantly at the two of them. "How did you come to be here so quickly? A human would have been unconscious for hours."

"We're not exactly normal," Paige retorted, glaring at the demon woman.

"Question for a question," Angel said, looking firmly at the woman. "Who's Tay?"

"You're a… vampire?" the woman said, ignoring Angel's question as she walked towards him, before glancing over at Paige. "And you?"

"Witch," Paige said briefly; this woman might know that they weren't human, but that didn't meant that she had to know everything. "You didn't answer our question; who's this 'Tay' guy, and what does he want?"

"I don't have time for this-" the woman began impatiently.

"Make time," Paige interjected, glaring at her. "If you didn't kill that man, who did?"

"Why do you think I would speak to you and not hurt you?" the woman asked.

"Gotta risk it," Angel said, glaring back at her. "Call me old-fashioned, but I can't allow tourists to go around torching locals."

"Leave- now!" the woman said, looking anxiously back at the area where she'd been standing. "I'm warning you!"

"Why?" Angel asked. "What's going to happen?"

Instead of answering, the woman turned to look at the area where she'd been standing just as something began to glow in front of a nearby window. As the three of them watched, the air in front of the window shimmered and blurred, like a reflection on the water, accompanied by a loud noise that sounded like wind being sucked back into itself. Stuck for anything else to do, Angel and Paige stayed close to the woman as she walked towards the portal, the demon woman holding out her hands before a naked girl fell out of the portal, collapsing on the ground before them.

"Stay back!" the original woman said, glaring at the vampire and the witch as she bent over to examine the girl. "We must go!"

Stuck for anything else to do, Angel grabbed a nearby wall-hanging and threw it over the girl as the woman helped her up, the new arrival clearly confused at what was happening around her,

"What are you running from?" Paige asked, looking uncertainly between the two women.

"It is not your concern," the woman said, pointing firmly at Paige. "You're not one of us."

Paige was saved from coming up with an answer when the door opened and Tay stepped in, followed by additional members of his species.

"No, but I think we'll stick around anyway," Angel said, exchanging a glance with Paige to confirm that they were in agreement.

"It's right," Tay said, his manner making it clear that 'it' was the woman. "This is not your concern. The traitor it and the other are ours. If you know what's good for you, you won't…"

Paige cut Tay off by kicking him in the face, glaring at the demon warrior in frustration at his sexist manner.

"Do that?" Angel asked.

As two of Tay's men grabbed the new arrival and forced her out of the room, Angel and Paige were forced to focus on helping the warrior woman fight off the rest of them; they might not know who was responsible for what right now, but the manner in which Tay referred to the women as 'it' didn't exactly suggest that he was the good guy here.

With Paige forced to focus on evading the sharp blades of one of Tay's men, Angel parried and struck out at another attacker, leaving the original woman to throw her first attacker into a nearby wall before turning to face the next one with immobilising strikes to the chest. Paige was about to ask the woman what had been behind those blows- she'd definitely heard something charging before the attacks struck- but the sound of a car pulling away from outside brought them back to the immediate crisis.

"They got her," Angel said, looking anxiously at Paige. "Can you-?"

"She's too far away and I don't know what to call for," Paige said, shaking her head apologetically as she looked over at the woman. "What'll happen to her?"

"She'll be unmade," the woman said grimly.

"OK, _that_ doesn't sound good," Paige said, before turning to look at Angel. "Anyway, let's just get to safety before things go _completely_ wrong…"

Making a decision, Angel grabbed the woman's arm as Paige took hold of both of them, the witch-whitelighter concentrating for a moment before she orbed away…

* * *

  
"What-?" the woman asked, stepping away from Paige as they reappeared in Angel's currently-empty apartment, the demon warrior glaring at the other two. "What did you do?"

"Got you somewhere safe," Angel said, indicating the wound on their mysterious new associate's arm. "You should really attend to that."

"Why are you doing this?" the woman said, shrugging off her jacket as Angel pulled out a first-aid kit from a nearby cupboard, revealing a sleeveless black top that left her back exposed and leather gauntlets wrapped around her forearms. "I thought vampires were killers."

"They are," Angel said. "I was cursed by gypsies."

"Cursed to… help people?" the woman said, looking inquiringly at him.

"It's a long and complicated story," Paige said, waving a dismissive hand at the question before she focused on the woman. "Now, care to explain what's going on here?"

"The girl is a runaway," the woman explained, as she took the offered supplies and began to clean her wound. "I was trying to help her escape from our homeland. If you hadn't distract-"

"If we hadn't been there to help, you'd _both_ have been captured," Paige said firmly. "You were outnumbered and the fact that we were there was the only reason you're not with them right now."

"Perhaps," the woman said, walking away from Angel with a non-committed edge to her tone.

"Why was the girl running?" Angel asked.

"She was going to be unmade," the woman responded.

"They're going to kill her?" Paige asked anxiously; the term might be unusual, but the implications weren't exactly positive.

"After a fashion," the woman said. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try us," Paige said firmly.

The woman looked at them both in silent contemplation for a moment, until she turned around to reveal a set of ridges running along her back, putting Paige in mind of a small dinosaur.

"In Oden Tal," she explained, her hands on her shoulders to better indicate the relevant area, "what you call personality- our passions, those impulses- sit in an area of the body we call the Ko."

"And your pursuers…" Angel asked, leaning in slightly to examine the ridged area. "They want to take this from you?"

"From the women, yes," the woman explained, turning back to face them. "When the females come of age, Ko controls our physical and sexual power; it even signals when we are… aroused and have met desirable mates. But when it's removed…"

"You're more easily controlled," Paige said, contempt at the idea of what the woman was discussing clear in her voice; she might be jealous of Angel's reaction to the woman, but what she was describing was just twisted on so many levels. "That's just sick."

"For them, it ensures our loyalty," the woman explained. "Without the Ko, we leave behind dreaming, marry who they command, serve without questioning…"

"And you escaped here?" Paige asked, curiosity piqued by everything they were learning.

"I was the first," the woman confirmed. "I am Jhiera, of Oden Tal; my family rules the dimension."

"You're royalty?" Paige said, looking at the now-named Jhiera in surprise.

"And I'm guessing that the royal family doesn't approve of the portal-jumping, refugee-saving duties you've assigned yourself?" Angel asked.

"They tell people that I'm dead," Jhiera said, only the haunted expression on her face showing how difficult she found that topic. "But the women know. Here we have a name. We have a chance to become, but it is difficult. When the Ko first matures the girls can't manage it; our physical energy. We come to your world in a fever."

"Hence the ice?" Paige asked.

"Yes," Jhiera said, moving towards Angel as she spoke, her breathing increasing as the ridges on her back began to glow in a manner that Paige didn't like, particularly not when Angel's own breathing increased. "When I first arrived, alone, I thought I would die from the heat under my skin… And your people; the men? Some respond to the Ko involuntarily. They tried to force themselves… it wasn't safe for me, until I found the frozen water."

Paige was saved from having to decide how she should respond to Jhiera's actions when the demon woman moved away from Angel to sit down in a chair, even as she reminded herself not to over-react to Angel's own obvious attraction (Everyone was entitled to look, so long as they never _thought_ about touching…)

"As long as I could stay cool..." Jhiera continued, now apparently in control of herself. "The worst of it passed in a few months' time, and then I started to learn to control my power."

"Like when you burned me earlier?" Angel asked, an edge to his tone as though he was trying to remind himself of what the woman had done to him earlier.

"I _intended_ to hurt you," Jhiera said, standing up with a slight smirk on her face. "I thought you were my enemy."

"What about the guard?" Paige asked. "Who did that to him?"

"He tried to touch one of my girls," Jhiera said. "It was his own fault."

"OK, normally I'd be all in favour of women defending themselves, but from what you've said, it didn't sound like he _meant_ to do that-" Paige began to protest.

"And the girl couldn't help killing him!" Jhiera countered. "It was an accident!"

"And that excuses it?" Angel said, looking grimly at her. "Paige and I can sympathise with what you're trying to do here, and we'll help if we can, but you can't go around hurting men in our world."

"I am the daughter to a King, sir," Jhiera said firmly. "A king who promised happiness and a better life for everyone. I didn't denounce him and escape for my good alone. I did it to see his promise come true for all the women of Oden Tal. If a few have to die to protect my people-"

"These are _our_ people who are dying," Angel said firmly, Paige standing beside in a show of unstated support. "And it's our promise to protect them."

"Then tell them to stay out of my way," Jhiera said, before she turned around and walked out of the office, pausing in the door only to glare at them. "I don't need your help."

With that said, she left the office, moving in such a firm manner that Angel and Paige both realised that following her would just result in them being attacked again, standing in silence to give her a few moments to depart before Paige broke the silence.

"So… would you like it if _I_ dressed like that?" the half-Whitelighter asked, looking over at Angel in a particularly pointed manner.

"What-?" Angel began, looking at Paige in confusion for a moment before he realised what she meant. "Oh, come _on_ ; I just meant-"

"That the demon was hot in every sense of the word?" Paige interjected. "Seriously, that top was-"

"Look, you heard what she said about how people react to her; are you really going to blame me for being a _guy_?" Angel asked, looking at Paige in frustration. "I love _you_ , Paige; I'm not going to leave you for some demon who's passing through just because I… well…"

"You admire her central mission?" Paige asked, dropping her pointed glare with a teasing smile before assuming a more serious expression as she looked at the door that Jhiera had left by. "Yeah, I know what you mean; I don't approve of her attitude towards collateral damage, but you have to admire her nerve in going up against even her own father to save her people…"

Her voice trailed off as she looked around the office and registered a note lying on her desk, prompting her to walk over and pick it up.

"What is it?" Angel asked, noting her anxious analysis of the words scrawled on the small piece of paper.

"Wesley," Paige explained. "He tried to call us, but couldn't reach our phones; he and Leo worked out what Tay was and Wes apparently identified that his people eat some kind of thick stew made of plants, so they're investigating somewhere where there's likely to be lots of compost…"

"Oh boy…" Angel said, recalling the various men who'd been accompanying Tay during their earlier confrontation with him. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That they're going to be in trouble?" Paige replied. "It's our lives; when do things ever go _completely_ our way?"

"If they orbed, they should be there already; think you can sense them?" Angel asked.

"So long as the Vigories aren't more prepared than they've appeared to be so far…" Paige said, smiling slightly as she closed her eyes and concentrated before looking at Angel with a smile. "Got 'em; let' go."

Nodding in agreement, Angel placed a hand on Paige's arm as the two of them orbed away once more…

* * *

  
Emerging in what looked like the rear area of a garden centre, Angel and Paige immediately found themselves looking at a fight, as Tay's men confronted their friends and family. Piper was clearly in the worst shape- she couldn't get far enough away from her foes to use her powers, and she wasn't exactly the most experienced hand-to-hand combatant- but the others were at least holding their own, ranging from Phoebe's aerial combat to Leo, Doyle and Wesley's more inexperienced but still efficient counter-attacks.

Only pausing long enough to confirm that there was no sunlight in their area, Angel and Paige leapt into action themselves, Angel quickly taking out a Vigory that was attempting to escape the warehouse while Paige tackled Piper's opponent for her. The Vigories were still powerful, but it soon became clear that their hand-to-hand experience was relatively limited- Angel guessed that most of the women of Odel Tal would have even less experience while the Vigories' strength would be enough to give them the edge-; once Angel and Paige's appearance made the numbers more even, it didn't take long for the San Francisco natives to turn the tide against their opponents.

A quick moment of conference between Angel and Piper regarding the threat they faced was all that Piper needed to start freely using her powers, quickly taking out two Vigories once she had retreated to a safer distance to use her powers without hitting an ally by accident, and then the remaining combatants were able to quickly knock down those left standing. Tay was shortly the only one left conscious, and Angel's position practically on top of the other man made it clear that he wasn't going to let their opponent off that easily.

"OK," Angel said, once again staring at Tay with the demon at the business end of Angel's sword, "now that we've got that out of the way, how about we cut to the chase?"

"The chase, in this case," Paige added, looking firmly at Tay, "is that you get out of our city, leave Jhiera and her women alone, and _never_ come back here."

"The creature cannot be trusted-" Tay began.

"I may not like her much more than you right now, but at least she's not the one lobotomising her own people," Paige interjected, still glaring at the Vigory. "What's important right now is that you're going to let her take those girls of hers to safety, and you're going to get out of our city _now_ , or we're going to see just how much damage we can do if we try crossing dimensions."

"You wouldn't," Tay said.

"Try us," Paige said resolutely.

She and Angel might both know that they were bluffing- they really didn't have the resources to help Jhiera even try and stage a coup of her home dimension, and they equally couldn't afford to shelter her women here and endanger the innocent residents of the city any more than they had already- but there was no reason for Tay to know that. If they could just make him _think_ they were more confident about their chances than they were…

"I have no choice!" Tay protested, clearly unwilling to listen to veiled threats. "If this enemy persists our whole society crumbles!"

"And if it persists on _our_ turf, you're going to have another enemy!" Angel countered.

"You don't understand our ways, human-" Tay began.

"No, I don't," Angel said, as his face shifted into its vampire form. "And I'm not human."

"Me neither," Doyle added, stepping up to stand beside Angel as he assumed his Brachen features.

"And we're… well, we're human, but we're not exactly conventional humans," Piper added, raising one hand in a threatening gesture as she looked at Tay in a firm manner. "Believe me, you do _not_ want to test us."

"Or did you miss the part where _we_ kicked _your_ asses?" Phoebe added, grinning confidently at their downed foe.

"Now," Angel said, still in vamp face as he looked at Tay, "if I were you, I'd grab the next portal out of here. Got it?"

Looking at the assembled forces standing before him, Tay nodded in resignation and stepped away from Angel.

"Prepare to depart," he said, looking grimly at the remaining Vigories still standing. After receiving confirming nods from all of them, he simply walked out of the warehouse, followed by the others.

"I'll… keep an eye on them," Leo said, indicating the departing demons. "Make sure they leave, you know…"

"Good call," Angel said, nodding at the Whitelighter before he turned to Paige. "Think you can help me find Jhiera?"

* * *

  
An hour later, Angel and Paige had returned to the warehouse with Jhiera- finding her had been fairly quick, but after hearing their story, she had expressed a preference for walking to ensure that she knew where they were taking her- to find the place mostly deserted apart from the remnants of the Vigories' weapons. The Halliwells and the rest of the team had clearly up most of the obvious signs of Vigory presence after their allies had left to ensure that the more obviously demonic aspects of this fight remained secret, but they'd also left enough traces for Jhiera to be sure that they weren't lying about what had happened here.

After she had spent a few minutes studying the warehouse as the other two watched, Jhiera turned to look at Angel and Paige with a brief nod.

"The Vigories have gone, and I can sense trace of the portal they used to depart," she said, smiling slightly at the two of them. "Thank you."

"You can sense portals?" Paige asked.

"Only those created from my realm, and it is most effective at tracing those used by my women," Jhiera explained. "I can make arrangements for when they will open the portals and provide an approximate location, but I have undergone great trial and error to confirm where the portals open in the rooms that have been chosen."

"Makes… sense," Paige said, nodding in acknowledgement before she glared pointed at Jhiera. "That said, you _do_ realise that we'd prefer you not stick around here much longer, right?"

"I am already making arrangements to move my women out of this city," Jhiera confirmed.

"Good," Angel said, giving Jhiera a firm glare of his own. "Because like we said earlier, if you're going to endanger our people, we're going to have consider you our problem too."

"It is not always that simple-" Jhiera said.

"Only if you make it that difficult," Paige said firmly. "If you want to protect people, it shouldn't matter what dimension they're from; the innocents of our world deserve consideration too."

"An easy sentiment when your people are free-" Jhiera began.

"We're not trying to stop you fighting," Angel interjected. "We just want you to know that we _will_ be there to stop you… if you cross the line."

"I don't need an extra conscience," Jhiera said, walking over to glare directly at Angel. "I'll do what I think is right."

"And we'll do the same," Paige said, making sure that Jhiera remembered that she was still there. "Now then… get out of our city."

With that statement, Jhiera glared at the two for a moment before she turned and walked away, the ridges on her black glowing red as they watched before she walked out of the building.

"Huh," Angel said, blinking awkwardly after Jhiera before he looked over at Paige. "That was… uh…"

"Angel," Paige said, walking forward so that she was standing directly in front of her boyfriend, "considering everything that Jhiera told us about her physiology, I am going to ignore the fact that you were staring at another woman like _that_ , so long as you spend the rest of the night showing me everything you even _briefly_ thought of doing to her with _me_. Clear?"

"Clear," Angel said, just as Paige practically grabbed his head and pulled him down for a deep, passionate kiss, before she orbed them away from the warehouse, heading directly for Angel's apartment, where she intended to make sure he couldn't even remember Jhiera's _name_ before the night was out…

Paige was fine with people looking so long as they didn't touch, but when her boyfriend was a vampire who was arousing a female demon with an interesting effect on men, she felt it was only fair to want to stake her territory…


	55. See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 'Charmed' rewrite, which I hope meets with your satisfaction; I had to stretch when Paige's curse would kick in, since she's not dating Nate now and therefore has no reason to go to a karaoke bar, but I think the changes work

Standing outside the nursery as Paige sang to Wyatt, Angel smiled as he watched his girlfriend, her soothing voice calming her nephew/namesake as he lay in his bassinet, eyes slowing blinking shut.

" _Finally_ ," she said, standing up and looking back at Angel with a smile as Wyatt finally dozed off. "Don't get me wrong, I love that little guy, but sometimes you just wish he'd stay asleep."

Angel just nodded briefly in response to that statement, uncomfortable saying anything more in response; the knowledge that he couldn't never give Paige a child of their own was something he didn't want to discuss any more than he absolutely had to.

"Y'know," Paige said, smiling seductively at him as she moved towards him, "it just occurred to me, after all the time I've sung recently, I've never heard _you_ do the same…"

"Trust me, you don't want to," Angel said, shaking his head firmly. "I tried it a couple of times in the seventies out of curiosity, and the results… well, they weren't pretty."

"You sang in the seventies?" Paige asked.

"It was a phase," Angel said briefly before he looked at her more encouragingly. "Seriously, though, how come I haven't heard you sing before?"

"Bad experience," Paige answered. "I was supposed to sing the school song for graduation; eight hundred people were watching, the band is playing, I get up but no sound comes out of my mouth. I completely froze. To make matters worse, I ran out and missed my own graduation."

"Ah," Angel noted, nodding in awkward understanding, wishing that he had more to say to that story than he did; a disadvantage of his age was that he had little in his background to help him relate to Paige and his other allies. "That _would_ suck…"

The conversation was cut short when a dark-skinned figure suddenly appeared in the room, grabbing Paige by the head before Angel lunged forward to strike the demon in the head with a powerful punch, knocking it away from the witch before it could turn to attack him. With Paige safe, Angel grabbed the demon by the head and twisted its neck as hard as he could, creating a satisfying crack before the demon collapsed into nothing.

"Huh," Paige said, smiling slightly as she looked at the small burn-mark that was the only sign that the demon had been present. "That was… pointless."

"Whoever complained about an easy day?" Angel noted.

"Good point," Paige admitted, shaking her head in frustration. "Seriously, though, we keep on taking out these Kazi things and they just keep coming back; what do they actually expect to gain?"

"Demons," Angel said, shrugging out of a lack of anything else to say. "Some of them are just too full of themselves to think about the risks."

"Point," Paige noted, smiling at him in approval of his assessment. "Anyway, we'd better get going; Piper wants me to join her and Phoebe at the street fair tomorrow for Wyatt's first time out, and… well, y'know…"

"Yeah," Angel said, nodding in understanding at her. The issue of his inability to go out in daylight was one of the many details about their relationship that they tried not to think about any more than they had to; they had reconciled themselves to their limitations most of the time, but some days it was just easier than others.

Still, if Paige was going to be busy with her sisters tomorrow, that just made it all the easier for the two of them to enjoy the current night together, now that the initial near-obligatory nightly demon attack was over with and there was nothing else putting a demand on their time...

* * *

  
Taking in the street fair the following morning, Paige was once again reminded of why she appreciated San Francisco so much; the city presented such a fascinating amalgamation of different histories and cultures in a visually breathtaking location on a regular day, never mind on occasions like today…

The only downside to the day so far was that it had been difficult to get things started; they'd had to repair some damage to the conservatory that they'd been putting off because they hadn't all been available earlier, and Phoebe had been trying to make arrangements for a meeting she'd be having the next day while Piper was worrying about her relationship with Wyatt just because she was having trouble getting him to smile for photographs.

On a magical note, the recent upsurge in Kazi demon attacks was puzzling, but Doyle had spent some time checking in with his local contacts in the more conventional demon underworld (Angel's arrival in their lives had really broadened their knowledge of what the supernatural community was like) and he hadn't heard anything to suggest that the Kazi was up to anything more interesting than trying to make a dramatic impression by going after the Halliwells. The sisters were having to be more cautious, and Wesley had taken to carrying more concealed weapons than he might have done- Angel and Doyle could handle themselves against a Kazi in a straight fight, but Wesley was still only human- but in general everything was going fairly well.

Paige had faith that her sisters would cope with their upcoming challenges, but she was still grateful that she had her own business and no immediate responsibilities beyond her relationship with Angel; at least she didn't have to cope with the kind of stresses they had to handle. Worrying about the Kazi demons trying to kill them might not be conventional stress, but it was at least the kind of situation that she could resolve without too much hassle; Angel or Doyle could knock out the next attacking demon easily enough, and then, once they found the king, it would all be over fairly quickly.

It was slightly sad that their life focused on how to kill things, even if they were demonic, but Paige felt that she had come a long way since Angel first dropped in on her after that first vanquish…

Right now, all she had to worry about was watching as Piper and Leo tried to encourage Wyatt to enjoy the fair when he was still young enough to prefer taking a nap to actually doing anything, as well as Phoebe continuing to talk to her editor over the phone despite the fact that she was meant to be having her day off at the moment.

As Phoebe's conversation finally became ridiculous, Paige decided to interrupt, walking over to her immediately older sister and all-but-stealing the phone from her hand, nodding over at where Piper was standing in front of another booth with Leo and Wyatt.

"…Too much phone-time?" Phoebe asked, at least having the dignity to sound apologetic about it as she ended the phone call.

"To say the least," Paige said firmly, taking her sister by the arm and practically marching her over to where the rest of their family were waiting. "Seriously, you're become _way_ too fixated on work; I thought Doyle was meant to be encouraging you to relax?"

"That's why I'm in this mess in the first place; we took so much time _out_ recently that I ended up falling behind!" Phoebe protested, even if the warm smile on her face made it clear that she appreciated what Doyle had done for her. "I mean, I enjoyed our time together, but there's only so much time I can afford to take off when things are this hectic; I've probably only got five minutes before the next call comes in…"

"Five minutes?" Piper repeated, looking at Phoebe in exaggerated incredulity. "You're only going to spend _five minutes_ with your _nephew_ at his first street fair?"

"I know, but I think I'm gonna be working Saturdays from now on," Phoebe said, shaking her head in exasperation. "Look, do you think I'm happy about this? There are many things I have been in my life; workaholic is not one of them."

"If you're not happy, why are you doing it?" Paige asked.

"Who said-?" Phoebe began.

"You just did," Piper interjected, leaving Phoebe to silently curse as she replayed her earlier words and confirmed her sister's point.

"Look, are you sure this isn't just because your boss thought it was a good idea?" Paige put in. "I mean, I get that you feel kind of bad about turning him down, but you're with Doyle now; you don't have to make up for being unavailable or something stupid like that…"

"Hey, national syndication is a big deal for me; the fact that Jason suggested it isn't what's important right now!" Phoebe protested indignantly, only to be interrupted when a small monkey jumped from the top of the booth to land on her shoulder, placing a hand against her ear before it jumped over to Paige.

"Don't like monkeys!" she yelled, as the creature placed its hand over her mouth before jumping over to Piper, covering her older sister's eyes before jumping away again, the crowd just laughing at what they probably assumed was part of the act even as Wyatt began to cry.

It might have been nothing in the grand scheme of things, but Paige was glad to have an excuse to leave; with Wyatt feeling tired and anxious, it was probably time to call it a day even without that odd discomfort she was feeling in her throat…

* * *

  
Paige knew that she was risking jinxing herself, but she had to admit that she was very much enjoying the last couple of days of peace. Nothing of immediate import had come up at the agency while she was away with her sisters the previous day, Wesley had spent some time yesterday buying a new set of books as part of his efforts to restore the collection he'd apparently lost after being fired from the Council, and Doyle was making arrangements to give Phoebe a relaxing dinner this evening after the chaos of some of their recent interrupted dates.

"Are you _sure_ we don't need to worry about the Kazi demons?" she asked as she walked down the street after picking up a new pair of daggers that Angel had ordered recently; with her hand-to-hand skills having hit a plateau of what she could accomplish without enhanced strength, Angel was working on teaching her in the use of a variety of weapons, and the daggers were the latest tool.

" _I told you, they're strong, but they're also fairly stupid_ ," Angel said reassuringly. " _We know that they're out there, and we can handle it; Wes is sticking with Doyle until we've got this dealt with_."

"Good to know," Paige said with a smile. "Guy might not have been good enough for the Watchers, but we-"

She suddenly found herself cut off mid-sentence as her voice vanished, even as she kept moving her lips before she realised that she wasn't making a sound.

 _Oh God_ … Paige thought, raising her hand anxiously to her throat as her repeated attempts to speak failed to accomplish anything.

She might not be a medical expert, but she _knew_ you couldn't lose your voice this quickly for no obvious reason, which meant that she was dealing with an _extremely_ disturbing curse…

Screw getting some exercise; she didn't need to hear Angel anxiously asking for her to know that she needed to get to her boyfriend as soon as possible. Quickly terminating the call and putting her phone away, Paige orbed away…

* * *

  
Reappearing in Angel's apartment, Paige immediately ran for Angel to give him a relieved hug, before she stepped back and pointed anxiously at her mouth, opening and closing it to try and convey what had happened.

"Paige, what… you can't speak?" Angel asked, expression shifting from confusion to anxiety as realisation struck. "What happened?"

Angel realised that what he'd said was stupid even before Paige rolled her eyes, but to her credit, Paige didn't waste time berating him about his stupid question, simply grabbing a nearby pad of paper and writing on it as fast as possible; LOST VOICE. POSSIBLE DEMON MONKEY? GET HOME?

"Probably the best call," Angel said, nodding at her in confirmation, deciding to ignore the comment about the demon monkey for the moment. "Even if your sisters can't help immediately, it's probably safer there than here."

Rolling her eyes at Angel's confirmation even as she smiled at him gratefully, Paige took his hand and focused for a moment.

* * *

  
As they reappeared in the manor's kitchen, Paige and Angel found themselves facing Phoebe, who was looking anxiously around before she smiled at the sight of them.

"Oh, _there_ you are!" Phoebe said, sounding surprisingly loud as she looked at her sister and the vampire. "We have a problem; I lost my hearing during the biggest meeting of my life!"

"Yeah, that's not the only problem!" Angel countered, looking anxiously at the older Halliwell sibling, pulling out the pad of paper that Paige had written on earlier and holding it up to show Phoebe.

"You lost your voice?" Phoebe said, looking at Angel in shock, before Paige shook her head and pointed at her own throat. " _You_ lost your voice?" Paige nodded in response before placing one hand over her mouth while indicating the 'monkey' written on the piece of paper. "Because of the demon monkey?"

As Paige nodded in response, Phoebe wrapped her arms around her sister in a loud apologetic hug, before stepping back and looking anxiously at Angel. "Are you OK?"

Reasoning that speaking wouldn't do any good, Angel just gave Phoebe a thumbs-up and nodded in response.

"OK, that's good; so we're thinking the monkey did this to us?" Phoebe asked, indicating herself and Paige, the younger Halliwell rolling her eyes in frustration even as she nodded in confirmation. Angel was just reaching for the piece of paper he'd been using to write on when he heard voices coming from the other room, prompting him to grab Phoebe's wrist and lead her towards the voices with Paige close behind him, swiftly identifying Leo, Wyatt and Piper as the new arrivals.

"What's that?" Piper asked, turning towards the vampire and her sisters but facing a point slightly to their left.

"What's wrong?" Angel asked, looking at Leo.

"Piper's lost her sight," Leo explained, before he looked at his in-laws in surprise. "Phoebe? I thought you had a meeting?"

"Leo, I lost my hearing!" Phoebe yelled at him, indicating her ears. "And Angel… mimed that Paige has lost her voice! Is Piper OK?"

Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Paige responded before Angel or Leo could do so, turning Phoebe around to face her before covering her eyes with one hand and pointing at Piper with the other.

"Piper's _blind_?" Phoebe said, looking at her eldest sister in horror.

"And you're deaf?" Piper asked, once again looking slightly off to the side from Phoebe's actual location. "And… did I hear something about Angel and Paige losing her voice?"

" _Paige_ has lost her voice; I'm still fine," Angel confirmed. "You're in the conservatory; you're all safe now."

"Yeah, until whatever did this comes after us again," Piper added, prompting Paige to mime the monkey once more.

"Uh… Paige thinks that a… monkey did this to you?" Angel said awkwardly.

"That monkey at the street fair?" Piper said, nodding in understanding. "Yeah, that fits… it covered my eyes, Phoebe's ears, and Paige's mouth…"

"We think that the monkey did this-!" Phoebe began, only for Paige to slap a hand over her mouth and glare at her sister.

"Phoebe?" Piper asked anxiously.

"Paige was just stopping her repeating what we already guessed," Angel clarified, before he looked over at Leo. "I take it you already tried just healing this?"

"Of course," Leo said, shaking his head in confusion before he looked at the vampire. "So… there was something about a monkey?"

"Yeah, this mangy monkey leapt onto us at the street fair yesterday while you were walking around with Wyatt," Piper explained, at least looking partly in Leo's direction. "We haven't had the chance to work out _how_ that happened yet, but if we're all here…"

"You'll have to be careful," Leo finished, looking over at Angel. "I'll get Doyle and Wes in case we need any help; you stay here and make sure Piper stays close to Wyatt."

"Right," Angel said, glancing over at Paige. "See if you can find anything in the Book, and stay alert; I'll stay here with your sisters."

As Paige gave Angel a thumbs-up and hurried up the stairs towards the attic, Angel looked over at her sisters and wondered why anyone would mount an attack like this.

Taking the sisters' senses was effective as a means of immobilising them as a team, but it wasn't like his own efforts had gone completely unnoticed by the forces of evil; did whoever was behind this forget that he and the others were there, or did they have some other plan…?


	56. Renegotiating Terms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out to be shorter than I was expecting; having Angel in the house made things a _bit_ easier…

It wasn't that Paige was grateful that she'd only lost her voice; she just had to wonder why someone had decided that doing something like that would limit the danger she posed in a fight. With Piper and Phoebe, their lost senses were an obvious problem- Piper couldn't see what she was aiming at to use her powers and it would be hard for Phoebe to know what they were doing at the very least- but in Paige's case, she liked to think that she could handle herself with or without the ability to speak, particularly thanks to Angel's training and her own practice in using her powers without speaking.

It hadn't even taken that long for her to find what they needed in the Book of Shadows; it might be limited in terms of information about Angel's 'class' of demon, but the Book had yet to fail them when it came to magic. Picking up the book, she quickly carried it downstairs to Piper's room, where her sisters were sitting on the bed with Wyatt while Angel stood nearby, assuming a bodyguard-like stance.

"Found anything?" Phoebe called out as Paige entered the room. In response, Paige sat down beside Phoebe- with Piper holding Wyatt on the other side, it would be best not to disturb him- and laid the Book down in Phoebe's lap.

"So… Paige is here?" Piper asked. "What did she find out?"

"According to the Book, the monkey's just a totem," Phoebe said (She was still fairly loud, but at least she'd stopped yelling as much as she had before). "Apparently, it was created by a sorcerer years ago to take his enemies' senses, but after he was mistreated he stole his master's voice and was turned into a wooden idol as punishment."

"So this whole monkey business about, you know, speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil is a real thing?" Piper asked.

"What?" Phoebe asked.

"Apparently, yeah," Angel confirmed, deciding to take over as 'translator' for the moment as he walked over to study the Book over Piper's shoulder; Phoebe didn't need to know what Piper had just said, so they should focus on the essential details right now. "They don't say anything about killing it, but we have to keep in mind that the monkey's probably not the real problem here; if it was cursed by its creator, someone pretty powerful must have released it…"

"Hold on!" Phoebe said, holding up her hand as she pulled out her now-ringing cellphone, glancing anxiously at the caller ID. "It's Elise! Piper, you're the only one who can talk to her that she knows; tell her I'm sick! Tell her-!"

"I got it, I got it, OK?" Piper said, trying to look reassuringly as she blindly held out her hand for the phone, waiting for her sister to put it in her hand before holding it up to her ear. "Hello? Hi, Elise. Uh, Phoebe? Yeah, she's here, she's lying down…"

Angel was distracted from hearing any more of that conversation when another Kazi demon suddenly appeared behind the three sisters. Before it had time to realise how many people were in the room, Angel had charged towards it and knocked it to the ground, slamming its head into the floor with such force that it lost consciousness.

"…Inner ear infection, I think," the vampire heard Piper saying over the phone as he stood up from the fallen demon. "Sorry about the noise there; we're… getting some work done. I'll have Phoebe get back to you when she's back to normal, OK?"

With that matter dealt with, Piper ended the call and turned to look approximately in Angel's direction. "What was that?"

"Kazi demon," Angel clarified, just as Leo came into the room. "Where's-?"

"His force-field's up and he's in his room; I thought it would be safer to try and keep him out of this," Leo explained, as he looked over at the fallen demon. "Is that a Kazi?"

Angel only had time to nod in confirmation before Paige waved her hands and five crystals appeared around the demon, generating the familiar form of the crystal cage around it.

"Silent summoning?" Leo said, looking at Paige in admiration, Paige simply shrugging with exaggerated embarrassment. Unfortunately, the good mood was cut short when Angel heard a worryingly familiar voice coming from another room; he doubted that Paige had decided to experiment with ventriloquism after regaining her voice without telling anyone, which meant that something was _very_ wrong here. Hurrying out of the room with Paige and Leo close behind him, the vampire arrived in Wyatt's room in time to see an old woman pick Wyatt up from the bassinet.

"Wyatt-!" Leo began, only for the old woman to launch a blast of magical lightning at him, sending Leo flying back just as Angel leapt towards the woman. She turned to fire another blast at him, but the resulting delay was enough for Angel to get past her defences and hit her with a powerful punch, forcing her to release her grip on Wyatt. Paige quickly orbed Wyatt into her arms before he could hit the ground, leaving Angel to kick the old woman in the chest and knock her down once again.

"You'll pay for that…" the old woman gasped, glaring up at the ensoulled vampire, only to be knocked unconscious by another kick to the head from Paige, glaring contemptuously at the woman.

"You know her?" Angel asked, looking curiously at his girlfriend. Pulling out her pad of paper, Paige made a few quick notes before handing the paper to Angel. "'Met in market; higher-up demon; said Wyatt to be left alone'."

"You met her in the market and she said that the demons would leave Wyatt alone?" Leo said, waiting for the half-Whitelighter to nod at his interpretation before he continued. "But… why would she say that and then do _this_? I mean, demons aren't exactly known for their honesty, but they wouldn't break their own rules _directly_ ; she wouldn't have done something this direct unless she felt she absolutely had to…"

"Well," Angel said, shrugging as he looked at the crone, "let's make sure she can't go anywhere and ask her."

It wasn't much of a plan, but if she'd been willing to make a deal once already she may be open to another if they could ensure that the alternatives were obviously unappealing…

* * *

  
It didn't take long for the three witches, the Whitelighter and the vampire to ensure that the Crone was confined to a chair, a basic crystal cage established around her and some magic-proof chains keeping her tied down; since they were fairly sure she was a relatively high-ranking demon, and Paige had confirmed that she was the one who'd claimed to pass the law forbidding demons to attack Wyatt, none of the Charmed Ones wanted to resort to torture too quickly in case this could be cleared up fairly quickly. Once the chains and the cage were established, Paige waved her hand at the Crone and the old woman's eyes opened; she might not be able to fully heal demons, but accelerating their recovery from a simple concussion was a different matter so long as she didn't concentrate too much.

"Oh," the old woman said, taking in her current situation before looking around the room. "I take it you wouldn't accept an apology?"

"Not after what you tried to do," Leo said, staring grimly at the Crone; he didn't like taking point like this, but with the sisters all relatively incapacitated he was the one most likely to get answers. "I thought you told Paige that you passed a law ensuring that demons _wouldn't_ go after my son?"

"I have no intention of _killing_ that child," the Crone said, looking grimly at Leo. "I had a vision of his future… a mere taste of power like we've never known, all centered around your child… but I needed to know more-"

"So you decided to take their senses and get your hands on Wyatt just to get a vision?" Angel interjected, looking incredulously at the Crone. "What was the point of something that… complicated?"

"You would all rally against a straightforward attack; such an endeavour would have been nothing but an exercise in futility," the Crone explained. "By taking the senses of the Charmed Ones, I could use the totem to access those senses myself, and thus learn the right moment to strike while they were occupied elsewhere."

"Gain their senses?" Leo repeated. "You mean… you could use the totem to speak in Paige's voice?"

"And see through the eldest sister's eyes and hear whatever the middle sister should be hearing, yes," the Crone said. "I confess, I wasn't anticipating that the two of you would show up so quickly when I went to make contact with the child; limited experience of vampires, I suppose."

"I'm pretty fast by any standard," Angel said briefly, before he re-focused his attention on the Crone. "Now then, here's the situation; you have to know by now that, regardless of our feelings about demons, nobody here's going to get _pro_ -active and start trying to kill you before we actually know they're doing something dangerous, right?"

"Quite," the Crone said, the slight sneer on her face demonstrating what she thought of Angel's word.

"Look, we know how to get into the market and the underworld and we haven't tried to just break back in there and go on mass killing sprees; shouldn't that count for _something_ here?" the vampire pointed out, glaring in frustration at the physically older demon.

"I… don't agree with the way Angel _phrased_ that, but I trust you get his point?" Leo said, looking uncertainly at the Crone.

"Well…" the Crone said, looking uncertainly between the two men before she sighed and re-focused her attention on Angel. "Your point is made, vampire."

"Good," Angel said, nodding at the Crone in return before he continued. "The point I'm trying to make here is that your rule about Wyatt was established for both our sakes; we don't want to have to keep killing demons just to make sure the underworld gets the message, and there's no way in _Hell_ we're going to let anything just take Wyatt. Whatever's in his future can wait unless something comes up that means we have to face it; in the meantime, you can rest assured that we'll leave the demons alone unless we have to, and leave Wyatt's future for the future."

"It's that simple?" the Crone said, looking pointedly at the vampire.

"Paige wrote out an argument for letting you off this once after you made that original agreement," Leo explained (In reality, Paige had only agreed to that plan so long as they confirmed that the Crone hadn't been trying to break it, but Leo saw no point in bringing that up right now). "So long as you restore their senses and don't try to come after Wyatt again, we're giving you this one shot to not get vanquished."

"A fair deal," the Crone admitted, nodding in acceptance at the Whitelighter. "But you should be aware that if I had this vision, then others will be aware of the child's power-"

"We'll deal with that," Leo said firmly. "You just worry about making sure that everyone understands the rules; any attack on Wyatt will be met with _very_ harsh reprisals on our part."

After the Crone had confirmed her acceptance once again, Leo removed a couple of the crystals they'd used for the cage and stepped forward to undo her bonds, Angel standing just behind Leo in case the Crone tried anything. Despite shooting a firm glare in the vampire's direction, the Crone simply reached into her pocket and removed a small statue that had to be the monkey totem, waving one hand over it and causing it to vanish into nothing.

"It is done," she said, stepping out of the cage and shimmering away just as Paige entered the room.

"How's-?" she began, before she clapped her hands to her mouth in surprise before looking over at Angel. "Hey, my voice is back!"

"Yeah, we… made the offer to the Crone, and she left after breaking the spell," Leo explained, shrugging as he looked at the youngest sister.

"Hold on; we _released_ the demon that just stole our senses and tried to take our baby?" Piper said, looking indignantly at Leo as she and Phoebe followed Paige into the room. "Did I miss a memo or something?"

"We just thought that it would be more practical to reinforce the message that Wyatt won't be a threat to them if they don't threaten him," Angel explained, taking up the explanation before Leo could look more awkward. "She made the rule against demons going after Wyatt in the first place; Leo and I felt that it was a case of saving the devil we know."

After looking at the vampire in exasperation for a moment, Piper sighed and nodded.

"Y'know," she said, smiling slightly at Angel as though trying to take the sting out of her words, "since we met you, it's been a lot less black-and-white than it used to be."

"Nothing wrong with that," Angel replied, smiling back at her. "After all, the world _isn't_ black and white; you're not idiots who have to have a 'one-size-fits-all' explanation for everything."

"We try," Paige smiled.

" _Anyway_ ," Phoebe said, looking over at her family, "with _that_ all sorted, I've got to get back to that meeting."

"The national syndication one?" Paige asked.

"Yeah, I've got to tell them no," Phoebe said, smiling back at her sister. "Everyone got so busy telling me that it was such a big deal that I didn't have the time to stop and think about what _I_ really wanted to do."

"Which would be what?" Piper asked.

"Spending time with my family," Phoebe smiled, before pulling out her phone. "And my new relationship, come to that, so I'm just going to have to tell Jason that, as much as I appreciate the offer, it just isn't me."

"Fair enough," Paige said, nodding at Phoebe in approval before she turned back to Angel. "In the meantime, let's celebrate another victory for our side that _didn't_ rely on having to beat people up…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said, a short one, but we're coming up to some rather more complex events; let's just say that some people are trying to get ahead of the Charmed Ones' upcoming allies…


	57. The Coming of Vocah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are; as this story comes to a climax, a very particular new arrival comes on the scene…
> 
> Just to clarify so that I'm not accused of giving anyone false hope, the new arrival and his associate are not Lindsey, Lilah, or anyone affiliated with Wolfram & Hart; this story is written based on the premise that the Buffyverse and _Charmed_ both occur in the same universe, with the only differences being that Buffy wasn't Called and Angel was sent to Paige instead (At least as far the events in the TV series go, since they obviously go on different tangents in the comics). All changes from canon be traced back to those events, and therefore, while this new arrival will take on some of Lindsey's role in upcoming storylines, he will not be Lindsey McDonald (Although you can picture him as looking like Christian Kane if you want)  
> In advance, I make reference to an event in the _Charmed_ spin-off novel 'Beware What You Wish', where a demon who gains power by granting and corrupting wishes- for example, a girl wishes for a pony and is nearly trampled by a runaway horse- tried to incapacitate the Charmed Ones by enhancing Phoebe's visions to the point where they caused her pain.

His purpose here had been straightforward from the beginning, but actually getting it all set up had been surprisingly difficult.

Actually arriving in the past before that cursed hybrid had been challenging enough- they were just fortunate that the Lord had enough experience to modify the spell once they got it back even if he had been unable to recall it from memory- but then he had to go all the way to Los Angeles to acquire that scroll before he could contact the appropriate people to summon the demon he was looking for to this plane, to say nothing of the hassle in recruiting his current associate…

Still, if it worked out, it should all be worth it; in a best-case scenario, his lord's best assassin would be available for service a few years before he was 'scheduled' to start serving them while losing some of his key assets, and in a 'worst-case scenario', he would awaken a valuable asset.

"This hallowed ground is made ready," the unholy monks he had gathered to him chanted, he and his associate standing back to observe. "His time is at hand. As it is written he of pure darkness shall come into the light."

As he watched, fire blared from the white circle before the monks, and a figure in a long black robe with a bronze mask emerged from the fire, looking solemnly at the two men before him.

"Welcome to Earth," he said, nodding politely at the pale-skinned demon. "I trust you had a pleasant journey?"

As the demon walked past without a word, he made a note not to be insulted; this being had a fairly significant reputation, whereas he was a virtual unknown in this time, so the treatment was only natural.

"So," he began, looking awkwardly at Vocah, "I understand that you're here to sever all ties between Angelus and the Powers that Be, but how-?"

"You possess the Scroll of Aberjian?" the demon asked.

"Yes," he replied, nodding in response; in this situation, it would be best to stick to the facts.

"Then I shall sever his ties while you make preparations for the ritual," the demon said firmly, red eyes made all the more prominent by his bronze mask as he turned to look at him. "The seers and the Oracles shall fall, and then the Rising will be completed; we have much to accomplish."

Vocah's personal manner might be frustrating, but he had to admire the demon's dedication to the bigger picture; even when he was unaware of the full importance of his role in shaping what was yet to come, Vocah was getting right down to business…

* * *

  
Angel hated to jinx himself, but they'd actually had a fairly quiet month since their last encounter with the Crone. Whether she'd decided to reinforce the terms of their agreement in acknowledgement of the favour they'd done in sparing her life, or other demons were simply discouraged after they'd dealt with such a direct attack so quickly, demon attacks on the Charmed Ones had fallen significantly.

Angel Investigations had still had to deal with a few cases involving the more physical demons, such as Angel being briefly captured by a demonic fighting ring and the sisters having to release the other fighters, or a group of demons from some pocket hell dimension trying to capture runaways from the street to use as slave labour, but in general actual threats requiring magic to defeat had been fairly quiet. Angel's latest vision from Doyle had just concerned a slime demon that had been stalking the sewers, and it had been dealt with fairly quickly; Paige could have handled it herself, and Angel had almost been satisfied not to be needed.

Sitting at his desk as he waited for something to do, Angel made a few notes on the laptop that Paige had recently acquired for him, sending an additional message to Darryl to update him on the recovery of the demon's victims; he doubted he'd ever be comfortable using this thing to find information using anything too sophisticated, but he was getting the hang of the essential functions. With his police contact up-to-date, he was just about to go and check the weapons inventory when his phone rang.

"Hello?" he said.

" _Angel_ ," Doyle said anxiously, " _we've got another one; something's-_ "

Doyle yelled over the phone as something fell at the other end of the line, the sound of his friend's agony prompting Angel to grab the office landline; if Doyle was being this vocal about a vision for this long, something was clearly wrong.

"Paige," he said anxiously, "you need to get to Doyle; something about his latest vision sounds really bad!"

" _Doyle too_?" Paige said, clearly surprised at the news.

"Too?" Angel repeated, confused at this sudden news.

" _Phoebe just collapsed from her latest vision_ ," Paige clarified; now that she mentioned it, Angel could hear the sound of someone whimpering on the other end of the line. " _She doesn't seem to be in actual_ pain _, but she's in some kind of dream-state; she's muttering something, but we can't make out what, and it's gone on for far longer than a regular vision should_."

"Something's going after both our seers?" Angel said, inwardly cursing at this evidence that the recent quiet period was coming to an end. "Get to Doyle and get him back to the manor; if he's screaming this much, I don't want to risk him going demon in the hospital."

" _Check_ ," Paige confirmed. " _Piper's already called Leo to take a look at Phoebe; I can't heal her, but hopefully he'll be able to give us something more to work with_."

"Right," Angel said, checking his cellphone once again to confirm that Doyle was still screaming before he headed over to the weapons cabinet to grab his best arsenal. "I'll be there soon; try and keep Doyle safe until I get there."

* * *

  
Hurrying into the manor with his coat over his head, the first thing Angel heard as Paige opened the door was Doyle screaming. Nodding briefly at his lover, he adjusted the coat as he entered the manor and hurried to the source of the scream, staring in horror at the sight of his screaming friend, the Irish half-demon in obvious agony as he lay on the couch in the main room. Phoebe was lying slumped in a chair near the couch where Doyle had been laid out, occasionally twitching and shifting violently as she slept but otherwise still, whereas Doyle was making far more violent movements, teeth clenched as though he was fighting the urge to scream and eyes squeezed shut.

"She's been like that for a while?" he asked, looking at where Piper was standing anxiously over her sister.

"Since a little bit before you called," the eldest Charmed One confirmed. "How long has-?"

"Probably the same time frame," Angel confirmed. "I was just on the phone with him when he started screaming; whatever did this must have struck them both virtually simultaneously."

"But how?" Paige asked. "I mean, if something could attack them through their visions, wouldn't it have happened before?"

"Well, there was this one time when Phoebe was attacked by a demon that increased her ability to get visions…" Piper began, before she shook her head. "No, you're right; if it was easy to do something on this scale, Athulak _would_ have done it then."

"She could still tell you what she was seeing?" Angel asked.

"Her visions just basically started acting like… well, like Doyle's, really; she got headaches when she had them and the pain got worse until we dealt with the problem," Piper explained, shaking her head in frustration. "And we vanquished that guy already, so where did _this_ come from… and when did she get that tattoo?"

"Tattoo?" Paige repeated, before she glanced at Phoebe's hand and saw what her eldest sister was referring to. "Oh, _that_ tattoo… which Doyle also has on _his_ wrist…"

"You're concerned about a tattoo?" Piper asked, before she looked more closely at the symbol that Angel had just indicated on his friend's wrist. "A tattoo I've never seen before and _really_ doesn't suggest something a couple get as a celebration of anything…"

"I've seen it before."

"You have?" Piper said, looking sharply at Leo. "When?"

"That's the symbol of Vocah," Leo said, indicating the tattoo grimly. "It ties into a prophecy in the ancient scrolls of Aberjian; I've never read it myself, but the Elders told me to keep an eye to if the opportunity ever came up."

"Why?" Paige asked.

"Because there's a prophecy in the Scroll discussing the mark of Vocah that concerns the vampire with a soul."

" _What_?" Paige said, looking indignantly at her brother-in-law. "There's a _prophecy_ about Angel?"

"There are a few, apparently, but the Elders aren't aware of the specifics; the Scroll of Aberjian is one of the only written records of the prophecies, and they've all been lost to our side for centuries," Leo explained, looking grimly back at the tattoo. "Which is a problem, because if Vocah's here, it has to be for a reason; his whole purpose is to sway prophecies that could tip the balance of good and evil firmly to their evil interpretation."

"Yeah, _that's_ ominous…" Paige noted, shaking her head as she stared down at Phoebe.

"Wes… ley…"

"What?" Paige said, turning to look sharply at Phoebe, her sister trying to sit up even as she kept clutching at her head.

"Boom…" Phoebe said weakly. "Office… big boom… Wesley… danger…"

"Is she… telling us what she's seeing?" Angel asked, looking over at Leo. "If this is meant to cut us off-?"

"It's possible that Vocah wasn't able to disrupt her power as effectively as he did Doyle's; they do get their visions from different sources-" Leo noted.

"We can sort that out later; I'm going to check on our missing guy," Paige said, closing her eyes and concentrating on Wesley. Sensing the ex-Watcher, she orbed towards his location, only to find him standing in Angel's flat staring in horror at a device that even Paige's limited experience could tell was an explosive device of some kind.

" _BOMB_!" she yelled urgently, orbing the bomb rapidly upwards out of a lack of anywhere else to put it; people might question the sudden explosion in the sky above the building, but that was better than losing the office. Orbing up to the roof, she glanced up to see where the bomb was, quickly orbing it further up once again before it exploded in a small fireball.

Paige wasn't sure if she should be terrified or bemused; she'd faced demons who'd resort to all kinds of curses and powers to try and kill them, but she'd never even heard of a demon so aware of the modern world that they'd try and kill someone using something technical.

There was always the possibility that this wasn't another attack from Vocah, but Paige _really_ didn't buy that as a possibility; what were the odds of them dealing with two different attacks against Angel at the same time?

Taking a moment to confirm that nothing in the area was damaged, she quickly orbed back down to Angel's apartment, smiling in relief as Wesley looked at her in shaken bemusement.

"Wh… what was that?" he asked.

"We're thinking demon attack," Paige said bluntly. "You'd better come with us; we've got a lot to get through and we don't know how much time we have to use it."

Whatever was going on here, she had to focus on getting her friend to safety and work out where to go from here…


	58. The Prophecy

Once they had gathered back at the manor, the remaining conscious members of the group had focused their efforts on working out how to treat their seers. Leo was trying to get in touch with the Elders about trying to trace Vocah, but he had warned them that it was likely to be difficult considering the wards that Vocah was likely to have erected to protect himself while he did whatever he had come here to do, and Paige's efforts to scry for him had so far met with failure.

Wesley was looking for something that could lift the Mark and restore Phoebe and Doyle to normal, but so far the best he could say was that the Scroll probably had a treatment for it, which wasn't much help when they weren't even sure how long they had until whatever was happening to Doyle and Phoebe became worse. The ex-Watcher had suggested trying a hospital, but Leo and Paige and quickly objected to that idea; since they were sure that the visions were responsible, all that would achieve was help them determine what was actually happening to their friends rather than give them a real idea how to cure it.

On the bright side, a search of Wesley's books had soon confirmed that Vocah was a primarily physical demon, which at least meant that he could be defeated in a fight rather than needing a spell or a potion, but the source they'd discovered also placed emphasise on his skills at hand-to-hand combat. Considering Vocah's age and implied power, it was agreed that Angel would take point in the confrontation when they found him- someone had to stay behind to keep an eye on Doyle and Phoebe, and Paige was the better fighter when magic was taken out of the equation- but that still left them with the challenge of finding Vocah in the first place…

"Got it!" Paige said, looking up at the others with a broad grin.

"You found them?" Piper said, looking at her sister in surprise from where she was anxiously preparing another sleeping potion; with healing having proved a failure, the best plan that she'd been able to come up with was to put Phoebe and Doyle into a deeper, dreamless sleep in the hope that the visions would stop. "I thought Vocah was going to be warded?"

"He was, but I realised that trying to look for _Vocah_ wasn't going to work," Paige explained with a hopeful smile. "So, I started trying to focus on that scroll Leo mentioned by using Doyle and Phoebe's marks; who'd think to ward a scroll, after all? It was a long shot, but it looks like it paid off, because… well, there we are."

"You found the Scroll through the Mark?" Wesley asked.

"Hey, everyone was saying that the mark could only have been inflicted with the power of the scroll, and if they need it for whatever they're trying to do here, they're going to keep it close to them," Paige pointed out. "I know it's a stretch, but we're kind of short on options right now; we have to _try_ something, and even if it doesn't get us Vocah, it'll help us get our Seers back."

"Right," Piper said, nodding in approval at her sister. "Paige, you and Angel go there and try to get that scroll back and deal with… whatever Vocah's doing if he's there; Wesley, Leo and I will try and find something else to help Doyle and Phoebe in case…"

She trailed off before she could finish her sentence, but everyone understood what she meant; if the two seers took a turn for the worst, they would need some kind of help, even if nobody here had any idea what they could do.

"Gotcha," Paige said, noting the location that she'd identified on the map one last time before she grabbed one of her short swords with one hand while taking Angel's hand in another, the two orbing away from the manor.

* * *

  
Reappearing outside a large funeral home, Paige quickly saw two figures walking towards the front door dressed in long dark robes. Fortunately, she and Angel were just off to the side and out of range of the two figures, allowing them to escape detection by simply remaining still and watching as their unknown targets entered the building. Exchanging brief nods, Angel and Paige hurried towards the door, moving carefully along the passage on the other side until they neared a corner, prompting them to pause at the sound of conversation from around the bend.

"We'd better move quickly," a voice said. "Believe me, he doesn't like being disappointed, and this is a _very_ complex situation…"

"Then why do this at all?" another man asked. "If he's already won-"

"Anomalies have already come up, and he thought it best to take action ahead of schedule," the original speaker said. "You'll understand when the time comes; what matters most right now is the mission."

The other man's manner suggested that he resented the lack of information, but the two continued walking, the vampire and the witch close behind them. As they heard a door open and close ahead of them, the two hurried around the corner to press their ears against the door, waiting for their next cue.

"…without soul," a deep voice said from the other side of the door.

"Yet they live," multiple voices said at once.

"Five are without sun," the first voice said again.

"Yet they live," the voices said in unison.

When no sound followed that statement, Angel and Paige exchanged grim glances.

"They know we're here?" the half-Whitelighter asked.

"Probably," Angel confirmed. "Shall we?"

"Lead on," Paige smiled at him.

Fighting hand-to-hand would have terrified the girl she'd been just a couple of years ago, but right now, with her boyfriend by her side, Paige felt that there was nothing they couldn't overcome.

Nodding in agreement, Angel delivered a powerful kick to the door, shattering it before him as he and Paige charged through it, emerging into a large room with five vampires chained around a large wooden box and assorted other figures standing around the room. With the chained vampires clearly no threat, and the majority of the room looking more like priests than any kind of warrior, Angel headed for the black-clad, white-skinned demon in the strange bronze mask carrying a large scythe that had to be Vocah while Paige charged towards the two figures that she and Angel had followed here in the first place.

As her chosen opponents turned to face her, one of them drew a sword, prompting Paige to draw her own weapon and parry the assault, her shorter blade forcing her to get closer than she'd like but the disadvantage offset by her opponent's clearly limited knowledge of hand-to-hand combat. Ducking around her adversary's attempts to hit her, she briefly registered that the other man had taken over the ritual that Vocah had apparently been performing when they'd arrived, while Angel ducked around Vocah's attempts to hit him with a large scythe as he tried to fight back with his own sword. Angel's shorter weapon clearly put him at a disadvantage, forcing him to stay back to escape injury, but she had to focus on her adversary right now; Angel might be at a disadvantage, but she couldn't help him or stop the ritual without abandoning her own fight…

As the five figures chained around the box suddenly collapsed into dust, a spiral of ashes whirled around the box as the other figure repeated the same word in what sounded like Latin before a sudden burst of energy erupted from the box, knocking the man who had been chanting into the wall behind him while the monk-like figures hurried forwards to take the box.

As the box was wheeled away, Paige's opponent, apparently deciding that enough was enough, lashed out with a powerful kick that struck her in the chest under the ribcage. Air forced from her lungs, Paige lashed out with a weak blow, but her sword barely grazed her adversary as he ran after the box. Looking anxiously around, Paige saw that Angel was still struggling with Vocah as he was knocked to the ground, but her concern proved pointless as Angel rolled around Vocah's next attack to strike him in the back of the knee. As Vocah staggered forward, temporarily knocked off-balance, Angel leapt back to his feet and grabbed Vocah's scythe, forcing his foe up against the wall with the blade between them. With Vocah's hands occupied by keeping the scythe out of play, Angel used his knees to hit Vocah in the chest as he tightened his grip on the weapon, raising it towards Vocah's face until he could use the weapon's bar to knock the bronze mask away. With the lost mask revealing a face where what looked like maggots gathered around what had once been Vocah's nose, Angel simply stared grimly at the sight before he rammed Vocah's own weapon into his face, leaving the demon to fall to the ground.

With the demon gone, Angel tuned to face the remaining robed figure, now back on his feet and clutching a scroll in one hand, a long crucifix held in the other.

"Care to explain what all this is about?" Angel asked, looking grimly at his opponent as Paige lay on the floor, struggling to regain her breath. "I mean, I knew I was getting a reputation, but compared to the Charmed Ones, am I really worth all this effort?"

"From what I've heard, anyway," the other man replied, still glaring grimly at the vampire as he shrugged off his hood, revealing long brown hair and a face that might have been handsome if it wasn't for the mocking sneer. "Believe me, I just work here; it's my colleague who has the _real_ plan."

"Hand over the scroll," Angel said grimly.

"That's not gonna happen," the man replied firmly. "It belongs to us."

"Really?" Angel said. "Unfortunately, I need it to help my friends, and I hear there's something in that thing about me anyway, so-"

"Not happening," the man said, raising the scroll. "I've seen the future, and what happened here is only the start of it; if you're smart, you'll jump ship now and save us all the trouble."

"I've never been that invested in prophecies," Angel countered.

"This isn't a prophecy," the other man said, smirking as he tightened his grip on the crucifix and the scroll. "This is a fact, and you need to accept that sooner rather than later. When the end comes, all that matters is who's got the power, and right now, I'm going to be one of those with a _lot_ of power."

"You saw that, huh?" Angel asked, as Paige finally felt controlled enough to get back to her feet, even if she was still too breathless to do anything other than stand beside her boyfriend. "You see what we're going to do to you if you don't give me that scroll?"

"You're going to lose it all, Angel," the man said, still smugly confident as he brandished the crucifix between him and Angel. "We're just getting started-"

As he held the scroll out towards one of the nearby flaming torches, Angel seized his chance and hurled the scythe he was holding, the blade cutting through the man's wrist before he could react. As his hand fell to the ground with the scroll still in it, the man screamed in pain, dropped the crucifix and ran for the door, his remaining hand glowing as he pressed it against the stump where his hand had been.

Paige thought about running after the man, but decided against it; even if she wasn't breathless right now, Doyle and Phoebe had to be the priority, and whatever the man was planning couldn't be that immediate a threat if they had been focusing on getting it out of the room rather than unleashing it upon them immediately.

"Not… our best… huh?" she said, shaking her head in frustration as she looked at Angel.

"We got what we were after and took out Vocah," Angel said firmly. "Anything else was just a bonus."

"Amen," Paige said firmly.

* * *

  
Considering the panic that their condition had caused, it was almost embarrassingly easy to restore Phoebe and Doyle to normal after they'd recovered the scroll. After taking it back to the manor, Wesley had quickly managed to identify the passage they needed to remove the Mark, which had been so simple to perform that he'd actually managed to do it on his own, restoring Phoebe and Doyle to full consciousness with no sign of anything more serious than a lingering headache, although that had been enough to prompt Doyle to collapse in the spare room to give himself more time to recuperate.

Recalling Leo's earlier comments about the scroll containing a prophecy relating to Angel, Wesley had spent some time studying it, noting down a few other relevant prophecies that he felt might be worth looking into later before focusing on one prophecy that he had identified as referring to the vampire with a soul.

"Shanshu," Wesley reflected, thoughtfully studying the relevant passage as he sat in the lounge area, the scroll and other books spread out on the table before him. "Shanshu… or maybe it's shushan…"

"Why is that word so hard?" Phoebe asked, looking critically at the ex-Watcher as she passed through the lounge. "I mean, if you can read everything else-"

"The prophecies of Aberjian were written over the last four thousand years, in a dozen different languages, some of which aren't even human!" Wesley countered, looking over at Phoebe in frustration. "Some of them are not as linguistically straightforward as you might think; unless you're planning something that might realistically speed things up, could you please be _quiet_?"

"Wes, calm down," Paige said, looking at her friend with a teasingly exasperated smile as she stood at the door of the lounge. "We've had a busy few days; you can't be expected to be at your peak all the time."

"But I'm so close…" Wesley sad, shaking his head in frustration for a moment before his voice trailed off as he stared at the passage, sitting in silence until he spoke again with a new sense of inspiration about his manner. "I know what it means."

"Really?" Paige said, looking eagerly at him. "What?"

"If it isn't Aegean but instead descends from the ancient Majar's then its root is proto-hugaric," Wesley explained, studying the scroll more carefully. "In which case it would mean…"

"What?" Phoebe asked, as Piper, Leo and Angel walked into the room to join them, the assembled group looking anxiously at the former Watcher.

"Death," Wesley said, looking grimly up at his assembled team.

"Death?" Paige repeated. "But you said this prophecy was about the vampire with the soul…"

"Oh," Angel said briefly.

"It's probably years off- ah, after the coming battles… apocalyptic prophecies aren't exactly a science," Wesley said awkwardly, as Leo came over to stand behind his chair while the Halliwells looked critically at the only human in the room. "And-and I could be way off the mark, so… no reason to be concerned…"

"Actually, you're right," Leo said, glancing over the text and Wesley's notes on the translation on the nearby pad of paper. "You just don't have the _context_ right…"

"You can read this?" Wesley said, looking up at Leo in surprise.

"Up to a point," Leo explained. "As a Whitelighter, I have a gift for languages, but it gets more difficult when I'm dealing with demonic languages, since I normally wouldn't have to worry about understanding them, particularly when dealing with an older language like this."

"But you can read _this_?" Paige repeated Wesley's original question.

"Only because Wesley's already translated most of it; since he's filled in most of the pieces for himself, I've got enough natural knowledge to clear up some of the other details," Leo explained, indicating the pad of paper beside him. "Wesley's right that 'Shanshu' means 'die', but in this context, it basically means 'die of old age'."

"Which is… the one thing Angel _can't_ die of?" Paige said, initial shock forgotten as she looked at Leo in confusion. "How does that make sense?"

"Because Shanshu's original linguistic roots were in the Proto-Bantu language, which considered life and death to be the same thing as part of a cycle," Leo explained, smiling reassuringly at his family. "However, since Angel isn't alive, he can't die in that sense, which means that 'shanshu' in this context refers to Angel _living_ until he dies…"

"Living?" Paige repeated, noting her brother-in-law's emphasis on that word. "As in…"

"As in he'll _live_ ," Leo confirmed, smiling over at Angel. "You'll become human."

"Human?" the Halliwells said simultaneously, looking at their vampire ally in surprise.

"You'll… you'll be _human_?" Paige said, her smile so broad it seemed to split her face in half as she looked at Angel. "That's _great_!"

Angel didn't even have a chance to voice his agreement before Paige leapt into his arms and seemed to be determined to practically devour his lips, the two sharing what felt to Angel like their most enthusiastic kiss to date until Paige finally parted from him, grinning all the while as her arms remained around his neck.

"So… great news and all, but what's that about Angel having to fulfil his destiny first?" Piper asked.

"Well, it's saying that it won't happen tomorrow or the next day," Wesley explained, studying the scroll with a new smile on his face. "He has to survive the coming darkness, the apocalyptic battles, a few plagues, and some- uh, several- not that many- fiends that will be unleashed."

"So don't break out the champagne yet, huh?" Piper asked.

"Hey, break out the champagne, Pinocchio, this is a big deal!" Phoebe countered, grinning over at Angel. "Come on, you'll be _human_!"

"Besides," Piper added, smiling over at the vampire and her half-sister, "with the Power of Three as back-up, how hard can it be for a vampire with a soul to save the world a few times?"

"Yeah…" Angel said, smiling as he looked around the room at his friends… no, his _family_.

He'd never expected that he'd be lucky enough to just earn Paige's love back when he'd first come into her life, and now he was faced with the prospect of becoming human again…

For a vampire with a soul who'd only never killed himself from guilt because he was scared, it was far more than he could have ever expected to receive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone wondering, the nature of the two cloaked figures will be revealed in time; I can't go giving everything away as I start to diverge more from canon, can I?


	59. Titanic Vision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this re-interpretation of the Titans' assault meets with everyone's satisfaction; having Doyle available allowed me to make a few changes more quickly than I'd planned, to say nothing of the changes in the Charmed Ones' approach due to their time with Angel helping them think more strategically than just 'find it and vanquish it'- when you get down to it, the Charmed Ones' standard foes can just be defeated with a well-written rhyme where Angel's foes often need specific items that have undergone specific treatment- but I think the results fit.

It had been well over a week since they'd learned about Angel's future destiny, but so far that was still the best news they'd received about possible future events since they received their powers. Piper and Leo's temporary strife was being dealt with by various counselling meetings, Paige and Angel's relationship had never been better since the news that he was destined to become human, Phoebe and Doyle had managed to enjoy some more peaceful dates, and even Wesley had spent a couple of enjoyable evenings out in other clubs. The discovery of the true nature of the Shanshu Prophecy had prompted some speculation about how it might be fulfilled, since Whitelighter healing was obviously not an option and most spells used to bring back the dead only worked on a short-term basis and required the subject to just be a spirit, but with the only thing they were sure about was that the prophecy would be a reward for some future good deed, they had eventually decided to focus on continuing as usual and let the prophecy happen in its own time.

The only thing that stopped them being happier about it was the continued mystery of whatever Vocah had summoned into that box before Angel killed him. Wesley had briefly speculated that it might have been the beast of Amalfi, which was some kind of razor-toothed six-eyed harbringer of death, but his additional research had confirmed that it was meant to arise in Reseda next year, and the only thing Angel had been able to do was note that Tarzana had seemed like the more likely wake-up point for something like that. Paige had mentioned a few strange dreams she was having about some kind of ancient magical war, but she had put it down to the fact that the Nyazian Scroll had simply left her with so much to think about concerning that period of history rather than anything more serious.

Still, even with the mystery of the box, things were generally going well for the Halliwells in all regards. The agency was attracting some conventional cases as well as their demonic issues, and Phoebe had even been invited to help organise a bachelor auction for the _Gazette_ as part of a charity event, convincing some of the potential candidates to participate; Doyle had been forced to decline the offer as he wouldn't be able to match any bids made given his own limited funds, as much as he would have enjoyed the chance to have a more expensive date with Phoebe.

Right now, however, with Phoebe preparing for the auction and Piper and Leo attending a birthday party for Darryl's son, all Paige had to do was man the desk for the office as Doyle took a well-earned day off after a pre-auction date with Phoebe and Angel re-checked his weaponry; they might not be able to do more than prepare for whatever apocalypse would bring about Angel's humanity, but they were going to be ready for it when the time came.

Paige was trying not to get too excited about it, but she couldn't help it; she might have accepted how a relationship with Angel meant that certain things were never going to be an option, but that wasn't going to stop her from being excited about the possibility that things could change in the future. Able to go walking with him in the sunshine, able to grow old with him, able to have _children_ with him…

Her good mood was cut short when the phone rang, prompting her to get back to business; if that future was ever going to hppen, Angel needed to stay alert.

"Angel Investigations; we help the helpless," she said automatically as she picked up the phone."

" _Paige_!" Doyle practically yelled at her from the other end of the line. " _Get me over there fast; I've just had a real_ doozy _of a vision an' I need to work out what I've seen_!"

"How bad are we talking?" Paige asked, standing up and grabbing her coat; if Doyle was this worried about a vision, it would be best to be ready for action…

" _Potentially end o' the world, if half of what I saw's right_."

Paige orbed to Doyle's apartment and back so quickly that the phone had only just hit the desk when she returned with her Irish seer in her arms, still looking tired after yesterday's late night but clearly ready for action. Pausing only long enough to terminate the call and put the phone back on the hook, Paige orbed them both down to Angel's rooms, looking anxiously at the vampire as he turned to look at them.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Doyle just had a _very_ vivid vision," Paige said, looking apprehensively between her boyfriend and her colleague. "He thinks he saw the world about to end."

"The world?" Angel repeated, looking anxiously at Doyle. "What was it?"

"Some demon freed two… somethings from ice, and whatever he released killed 'im an' went on to start trying to free something else," Doyle explained. "Didn't catch their names, but they were in these ancient togas, and I think anything that took that much effort to be locked up and is evil enough to kill the guy who let them out probably got mentioned somewhere."

"You think that's the reason it's been so warm here lately?" Angel asked, looking over at Paige.

"Well, if I was trying to free something that's been frozen for centuries, I'd probably try and turn up the heat first," Paige acknowledged, shaking her head in frustration as she looked at Angel's books. "The only question is _what_ …?"

"We'd better get started," Angel said grimly. "I'll call Wesley and let him know we need him; Paige, get back to the manor and see what the Book of Shadows has to say about anything ancient enough to wear togas that was frozen in ice."

"Not much to go on, but it's the best we've got," Paige said, nodding in understanding, as she orbed a few of the books from the shelves to the nearest table before she followed Angel's instructions, arriving in the attic as she began to rapidly study the Book of Shadows.

'End-of-the-world' might be higher stakes than the average vanquish, but that just made it all the more important to figure out what they were dealing with; she just wanted to be sure that she had a clearer picture of what they were dealing with before she had to bring her sisters into this. The supernatural might comprise the main focus of her life at the moment, given her relationship with Angel and their role in this agency, but Piper and Phoebe were dealing with more conventional issues right now, so she wasn't going to interrupt that time unless she had to.

The question was, what would they end up dealing with…?

* * *

  
When Piper walked into the attic, she wasn't sure if she should be surprised or frustrated when she found Paige scanning through the Book of Shadows; they'd been having a relatively peaceful time since they found the Shanshu Prophecy, so she supposed it was only a matter of time until things went wrong.

"What's up?" she asked, looking curiously at her youngest sister.

"Doyle had a very disturbing vision and we're trying to figure out what it was," Paige clarified, before she looked at her sister. "What's up with you?"

"Well, Leo's been called up by the Elders for something, but I haven't heard back from him yet, so I had to cut the party short before I killed the mood," Piper replied, shaking her head slightly as she sat down beside Paige. "Well, at least Phoebe's doing OK at her end…"

"Auction's going well, huh?" Paige asked with a smile.

"Last I heard, anyway," Piper confirmed.

"Ah- _ha_!" Paige said, smiling as she noted 'ice' written by text accompanying an image of something wearing a toga, although her smile faltered as she studied the text. "Oh, that's not good…"

"What?" Piper asked.

"Just listen to this," Paige said, swallowing slightly as she read from the Book. "'In the days of Ancient Greece the Titans were God-like beings who ruthlessly ruled the earth. Like other magical beings their powers were tied to their emotions but on a much grander scale. A burst of Titan rage could spark a massive earthquake or a hurricane of epic proportions. The mortals of the era were terrified by these beings' abilities and worshiped them as Gods in the hopes of appeasing them. Ultimately the Titans could not be vanquished and the only way they could be stopped was by magically entombing them in ice, an act which brought an end to their terrible reign'."

"Ah," Piper said, nodding in grim understanding. "Yeah, that's… _really_ not encouraging."

"A Whitelighter's disappeared," Leo said, as he suddenly appeared beside Piper.

"A Whitelighter?" Paige repeated. "How can a Whitelighter 'disappear'? Are we talking about a Darklighter?"

"No, a Darklighter's poison is slow and painful," Leo clarified. "This was more instantaneous and the Elders have no idea what it could have been."

"Maybe these guys?" Paige asked, picking up the book and turning it around so that Leo could see what she was looking at.

"The Titans?" Leo said, looking at Paige in shock. "What-?"

"Doyle had a vision of three people in togas being released from ice and killing the demon who let them out," Paige explained. "I know it's a bit of a stretch, but if Whitelighters are disappearing just as these guys get out-"

"Actually, it's not that much of a stretch," Leo said, his expression grim as he looked between the two sisters. "The Elders were the ones responsible for the Titans being trapped in the first place; if they were released, they'd probably go after Whitelighters."

"For revenge?" Piper asked. "Look, I know the Elders have their reasons, but they aren't _that_ attached to each individual Whitelighter-"

"It's not about personal vengeance; the Titans need the ability to orb in order to confront the Elders," Leo explained.

"Ah," Piper said, shaking her head in frustration. "So, I'm guessing this isn't the kind of thing we can put on hold?"

"If the Titans have been released and Whitelighters are going missing, we should prepare for the worst," Leo confirmed. "The last time the Titans got out… well, the situation was so serious that the Elders still tell new Whitelighters about it to make sure…"

"Make sure of what?" Paige asked.

"That's not important right," Leo said firmly. "I'll alert the Elders; you keep an eye on things down here and see if you can find some way to stop them."

"OK," Paige said, looking over at Piper, "am I just being paranoid, or did he give the impression there's something he's not telling us?"

"Hey, if these Titans are as bad as it sounds, I'd think _anyone_ would be nervous about having to deal with them," Piper said defensively, before she turned back to the Book. "OK, I've got a bit of time before the next appointment; let's see what we've got here…"


	60. The Coming of Chris Parry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm cutting down on the time frame referenced in the episode for practicality purposes; hope nobody minds

With Piper having headed off to her couples' therapy meeting, and Phoebe still occupied at the bachelor auction, Paige had returned to Angel Investigations to discuss their next move. Wesley had agreed with Paige's identification of the Titans as their enemy, but even with that information to narrow down their search, he had yet to find anything that suggested at a method of killing the Titans. Leo had called in to let them know that the Elders agreed with Paige's theory about the Titans, but he had admitted that the Elders had seemed to be avoiding the topic when he tried to ask what they were going to do about it.

In the end, Paige was starting to conclude that the only way they were going to get anywhere with this mess was to try the direct approach, which meant that she was going to need some help from Angel to put her latest plan into action.

"You want to _what_?" Angel, Doyle and Wesley said practically simultaneously as they looked at her incredulously.

"I want to lure the Titans into a trap by using myself as bait," Paige explained.

"And you think they'll be after you, why?" Doyle asked.

"The Elders just issued a no orbing edict, so there's not likely to be any _other_ Whitelighters down here right now, are there?" Paige pointed out. "If we can get at least one Titan here, we should be able to do _something_ to it."

"And that's a good thing?" Doyle pointed out. "These guys were gods before there _were_ gods, Paige-!"

"And I've been training all year to make potions and spells more powerful even than anything we used to take out the Source; trust me, we can _do_ this," Paige said encouragingly. "Besides, if they need Whitelighters for something, they _can't_ be all-powerful, can they? We just need to hit 'em hard and fast before they decide to go after someone who can orb who _can't_ defend themselves…"

As she glanced over at Doyle, she was grateful to see him turn slightly pale as he realised who she was talking about; Doyle's ties to Wyatt might not be as strong as hers, but he was still touched by the knowledge that a Charmed One had named her child after him.

"OK," Angel said, nodding at her in resolution. "Give us a chance to get armed, and let's do this."

A few minutes later, the four members of Angel Investigations had moved down to Angel's apartment, Angel holding a sword while Wesley had chosen a mace and Doyle maintained a tight grip on his chosen axe. Paige was standing in the middle of the three, her posture tense but everything else ready to act.

"Ready?" Angel asked, looking anxiously at his girlfriend.

"Yeah; let's do it," Paige said, taking a deep breath before she orbed on the spot. As soon as she'd reappeared, the room shook before an unfamiliar woman appeared, with dark hair and wearing a long white toga with brown leather shoulder-pads. As Paige hurled her potion at the woman, the sudden explosion did nothing more than briefly distract the woman as her eyes began to blow before Wesley slammed his mace into her face. The blow didn't do more than send her staggering, but it distracted her long enough for an unfamiliar young man to orb in and hurl three potions at the woman. Before anyone could question what had just happened, the woman in the toga vanished, leaving Angel, Paige, Doyle and Wesley to look incredulously at the new arrival.

"Just in time," the new arrival said, smiling awkwardly at the four members of Angel Investigations. "Nice job."

"And you are?" Paige asked, turning to glare at the mysterious Whitelighter.

"Call me Chris Parry," the man said, smiling encouragingly at her. "And you should be glad I was here; if that Titan had taken a good look at you, you'd be ready for a museum."

"She'd be a mummy?" Wesley asked uncertainly.

"More like a statue," Chris explained. "You'd be surprised how many statues in museums are actually people who were turned to stone-"

"How do you know that?" Wesley asked.

"More to th'point, how'd you know about all _this_?" Doyle interjected. "Who _are_ you?"

"I told you," Chris said. "My name's Chris Parry; I'm from the future."

"Huh," Angel said, after exchanging glances with the rest of his team. "That's… different."

"Is that why you came here?" Doyle asked. "I mean… were we destined to die here or something?"

"Something like that," Chris said grimly. "According to history, these events originally culminated in the deaths of Angel Investigations and the destruction of the Power of Three before the Titans took over and created a future you don't want to see."

"And someone sent you here to change that?" Wesley asked, looking curiously at Chris. "Who?"

"I can't answer that," Chris said.

"Why not?" Doyle asked.

"Because anything I tell you could risk changing the future in ways we don't want."

"'We'?" Paige repeated, glaring indignantly at the mysterious arrival. "Who's 'we'?"

"All I'm going to say is that, if I wasn't here, Paige would have been the third Whitelighter victim," Chris said firmly.

"Third?" Doyle said. "I thought there was only one?"

"Oh for- _Leo_!" Paige yelled up at the ceiling, prompting her brother-in-law to appear in the middle of the assembled group.

"Paige," he said, looking at her in frustration, "I can't keep doing this; I'm already in trouble with Piper-"

"Yeah, normally I'd love to help with that, but we have bigger problems right now; has another Whitelighter gone missing?" Paige asked.

"Yes," Leo said, looking at her in confusion. "How do you- who's he?"

"That's Chris; he came back from the future to save my life," Paige said, shaking her head in exasperation. "And believe me, I find that just as weird as you do."

Leo was saved from replying when the phone rang, leaving Paige to shake her head as she took the phone from her pocket. "Yeah, what's up?"

After listening to the conversation for a few moments as the various men looked at her, Paige shook her head and looked at the rest. "OK, apparently things just got trickier; we've got a mass of magical creatures showing up at the manor looking for protection."

"Magical creatures?" Wesley repeated. "What are we talking about here?"

"Fairies, dwarves, leprechauns, wood nymphs, elves, that kind of thing… and they're all asking us to stop the world from ending," Paige clarified, shaking her head in bemusement. "We're going to need to step up a bit on this one."

"Maybe we should focus on the more immediate issues, like making sure everyone knows about the Titans?" Angel said, looking impatiently at his girlfriend before looking over at Leo. "You'd better alert the Elders; we'll regroup at the Manor and work on things from there."

"And Mr Parry here?" Wesley asked, indicating the new arrival.

"Comes with us until we know more about the situation," Angel said, looking resolutely at the younger man.

"Sure," Chris said, nodding in understanding as he placed a hand on Wesley's arm. "Let's get back to the Manor."

* * *

  
Looking back, Paige was never sure who was more surprised when they reached the manor; the Angel Investigations team at the sight of all the mythical creatures- particularly Wesley, who, for all his experience, tended to be more aware of demons than the purely magical creatures encountered by the Halliwells- or Piper and Phoebe when they learned about Chris's origins. The older sisters were clearly sceptical about the story, but they had each accepted his claim to be from the future- mainly because there was no evidence to the contrary and he at least seemed to be there to help- leaving them to focus on the more immediate matters of their new guests and dealing with the current threat.

"I don't suppose you have anything _useful_ to tell us?" Piper asked as she, Paige, and Chris studied the Book of Shadows in the attic, leaving Phoebe to assist the men in getting their guests down to the basement. "I mean, in terms of vanquishing these Titan things…"

"You can't," Chris said.

"And by 'can't', you mean-" Paige began.

"I mean you can't," Chris repeated himself, turning a page in the Book and noting the entry with a smile. "By the way, you're going to want to update that one-"

"Can we focus on that _after_ we've stopped the Titans?" Piper said, glaring at the younger man. "And what do you mean, we can't vanquish them? We have the Power of Three-"

"Which might not be enough," Chris said. "The only way the Elders stopped the Titans last time was by infusing mortals with a great deal of power, and after that happened those mortals went mad with power and demanded to be worshipped as gods before their powers were taken away…"

"Hold on; _that's_ where the myth of the gods comes from?" Paige asked. "I always got the impression they were still around-"

"It's a bit of both, really; from what I gathered the gods' essence was dispersed after their powers were taken so that they're still around on some level even if they can't actually _manifest_ ," Chris explained, before he glared at Paige. "And that's not important right now; I didn't come back all this way just to get a front-row seat of their victory."

"And on that topic, why were these guys after Whitelighters anyway?" Piper asked, trying anxiously to defuse the potential conflict.

"Because they need their orbing power," Chris said.

"Oh, that- hold on, you _knew_ about that and waited to tell us _now_?" Paige said, looking indignantly at Chris. "What kind of idiot are you?"

" _Leo_!" Piper yelled, hurrying out of the attic and down the stairs, only to find her younger sister and the other three men with no sign of her husband. "Where's-?"

"He just went… up there… to warn the Elders about something," Wesley explained, waving an awkward hand at the ceiling before he looked anxiously at Piper. "Is something wrong?"

"Well, we just realised that the Titans are after the Elders and we're potentially screwed if they can steal the orbing power from Whitelighters; does that count as 'wrong' to you?"

"They're after the _Elders_?" Doyle repeated, looking anxiously at Piper. "I mean, OK, they're annoying, but… I mean… why didn't that Chris guy mention that?"

"Because I can't tell you everything," Chris said as he walked downstairs from the attic. "Some things you have to figure out on your own."

"Even at the risk of making things worse?" Phoebe asked.

"Can we focus on the immediate issue right now?" Piper asked. "Why is my husband taking so long up there?"

"He's… going to need some time," Chris said.

"You _know_ -?" Paige began, before Chris suddenly orbed out, leaving the rest looking at each other in exasperation.

"Seriously, why do people from the future always do that?" Doyle said.

"Always?" Phoebe said. "You've never met anyone _from_ the future before…"

"I meant in movies," Doyle clarified, before he shrugged in frustration. "OK, let's just… try and sort something out."

"What?" Angel asked. "We've established that magic isn't practical, and I don't think _my_ approach is going to make any difference; what else have we got?"

"Back to the books, I suppose?" Wesley suggested. "There has to be _something_ we haven't found yet…"


	61. From Witch to God

"This isn't going to work," Wesley said, sighing in exasperation as he sat back from his latest text. "The problem is that we're dealing with something that was meant to have been dead for centuries; nobody really bothered looking for anything on the Titans because they were believed to be out of the picture."

"And this would be one hell of a lot easier if Chris would just _tell_ us how to deal with this mess…" Piper sighed, glancing apprehensively at the room where the elf nanny was keeping an eye on the baby. "Seriously, what is the _point_ in someone coming back from the future to help us save the world when he won't share anything?"

"Trust me, we're _all_ trying to work that out," Phoebe said in exasperation.

"At least we know where these guys are now," Doyle pointed out. "OK, drawin' their attention might not be the _greatest_ plan, but at least we can keep their focus on us rather than… well, anyone else."

"Yeah, I'd be feeling more positive about that if we had any kind of _plan_ for dealing with them," Paige said grimly. "I mean, I can get behind heroic sacrifice even if I'd rather not, but right now the only thing we'd buy is a few extra seconds for everyone else…"

"And _I'd_ feel better if Leo got back here," Piper put in, looking anxiously upwards once again. "How long is he going to take? I mean, Chris said something to me before he left about Leo having to go this alone; what was he talking about…?"

"Should we be more worried about what that dwarf said 'bout the _survivin'_ Elders?" Doyle added, remembering what the magical creatures had said before they'd left the manor. "I mean, I'm not complainin' about havin' the place to ourselves again, but if these suckers can kill the Elders, that doesn't exactly help us solve this mess…"

"Actually, I'm here because it does exactly that," Chris suddenly said, reappearing in the middle of the living room as he looked around at the sisters and their allies.

"Where's Leo?" Piper asked, as everyone stood up to look at him.

"He's safe for now," Chris said. "He just needs to coordinate things up there."

"What things?" Wesley asked.

"This," Chris said, before what the men could only describe as a tornado of light descended from the ceiling to swirl around the sisters. Before any of them could do something about it, the glow had faded and the three sisters were dressed in what they could only describe as Ancient Greek togas of varying styles, with Phoebe's hair having suddenly become extremely long and blonde while Paige was now carrying a short trident with three sharp points.

"What the _Hell_?" Paige said, looking indignantly down at herself and her new weapon. "What just happened?"

"You're gods," Chris smiled.

"Gods?" all six people repeated in shock.

"Hold on; we're gods… and we're going around looking like we belong in a costume party?" Piper said, indicating herself incredulously. "And why just us? Why not-?"

"Mr Wyndam-Pryce couldn't cope with the power of this transformation without being overwhelmed by it, and Angel and Doyle's demonic heritage makes it… it raises too many questions," Chris explained, having the decency to at least look awkwardly at the last two as he explained the reasoning. "Trust me; it's easier to go with you three… and that's not a costume; it represents your new position and power."

"Power?" Paige repeated thoughtfully. "Power's good; I like power… why do I like power?"

"Because you're the Goddess of War," Chris explained.

"Ah," Paige said, nodding thoughtfully as she studied the weapon. "Well, I guess that explains the pitch fork…"

"It's a trident, actually," Wesley interjected, looking thoughtfully at the weapon. "They were typically a very formidable weapon; mostly the advantages of a spear while giving the combatant far more options when the time came for close-quarter combat…"

"Right on," Paige grinned, giving the trident a few testing swings. "Who wants to fight?"

"I'm a lover, not a fighter," Phoebe responded as though the very idea was a shock to her.

"You're the goddess of love," Chris noted.

"OK," Piper said, holding up her hands in frustration. "Well, then that must make me the goddess of sanity, because I find this ridiculous."

"Actually, Leo gave you dominion over the earth and all its natural elements," Chris clarified.

"Hold on; _Leo_ did this?" Doyle interjected, looking sharply at the new arrival. "Last time I checked, he was just a Whitelighter; when'd he get the authority to turn people into gods?"

"Doyle?" Phoebe said, looking at him with a sudden smile. "You know, I never actually asked; things _are_ still finalised between you and Harry, right?"

"What?" Doyle looked at Phoebe in shock. "What's that-?"

"It's a side-effect of the transformation; all of you will have drives and urges based on your powers," Chris explained, giving Phoebe a pointed glare before he addressed the other sisters. "So long as you focus on ignoring them to deal with the Titans, you should be fine."

"Can we get back to Doyle's original question here?" Piper asked, waving a hand impatiently. "When did Leo get the authority to turn people into gods against the Elders' orders?"

"Since most of them are dead, the old rules aren't as much of an issue right now," Chris clarified. "Leo's in charge up there now, and he's taken a huge risk that you three won't lose your humanity like the ancient Greeks-"

His explanation was cut short when Paige stepped forward and used her trident to haul Chris up into the air by his shirt, twisting it slightly as though imagining that the three blades were digging into flesh rather than clothing.

"Your lack of information killed the Elders," she said, glaring coldly at him. "I say we castrate."

"A little control here, ladies, please…" Chris protested awkwardly.

"Can't we figure out something else to cut off?" Phoebe asked.

" _Phoebe_!" Doyle protested, just as Chris orbed away from the tip of the trident and reappeared at the other side of the room.

"I told you, stay focused," the Whitelighter said impatiently. "In my future, all the Elders were killed. That's why I came back; to help Leo give you the power so this would never have to happen again."

"Hey…" Paige said, studying the trident thoughtfully, smiling as she stroked the handle. "This feels… good…"

"Probably because it's meant to shoot lightning; can we _focus_ on the _problem_?" Chris said impatiently.

"Nice," Paige nodded in approval, clearly still looking at her weapon rather than listening to Chris, before she glanced over at Angel. "Can you imagine how many vamps we could take down with this?"

"Paige, make love, not, you know, war," Phoebe said, in a dismissive tone. "There's door love can't open, no wall love can't climb, no hurdle love can't… Hurdle."

"This is Leo's strategy?" Piper asked sceptically. "Well, he must have lost it up there because these girls can't be seen in public, much less-"

"Ooh, that reminds me," Phoebe smiled. "I'm late for the bachelor auction. I'm gonna go pick up a guy or two, or twelve."

" _Hey_!" Doyle said, looking at her in indignation, just as Phoebe clapped her hands and vanished in a pink swirl of mist that briefly appeared to be in the shape of a heart, leaving Doyle looking hurt and confused as he stared at the area where she had been standing earlier.

"You know, that's actually not a bad idea," Paige said, reaching over to grab Angel's arm. "C'mon, Angel; time to get in some target practise with some demons."

Angel didn't have time to protest before he and Paige vanished in a series of sudden lightning-bolts, leaving Piper to look awkwardly at Doyle and Wesley as though trying to apologise for her sisters' actions, before all three of them glared at Chris.

"OK," Chris said, holding up his hands defensively, "Leo and I knew that this was going to happen-"

"Good; your plan, your mess," Piper said firmly.

"Actually, fixing this is your job," Chris explained. "As the Earth mother, your purpose is to provide balance; it's why you're relatively in control of yourself-"

"Look, boyo, we're not in the market for a Whitelighter right now; we'd like our usual one back-!" Doyle began indignantly.

"Which will only happen if you stop the Titans," Chris interrupted, looking coolly at the half-Brachen seer. "You have to get Phoebe and Paige back on track, or you'll find out what a world of darkness really is; the world I left behind me."

"So… no pressure, then?" Doyle said. "For a guy who came back in time to help out, you're _really_ not bein' very helpful…"

"Look, Doyle, I don't like this any more than you do, but we need to focus right now, OK?" Piper said, looking sharply at the demon. "Phoebe mentioned that bachelor auction, so see what you can do about that; I'll try and figure out where Paige took Angel while Wesley…"

"I'll… continue with the Titan research," Wesley said, shrugging awkwardly as he looked at Piper. "After all, there's not much I can do against these things in a fight, and I might still turn up _something_ useful."

"Give it your best," Piper said, smiling sympathetically at Wesley; the ex-Watcher might specialise in a different style of demons to what they were used to dealing with, but he'd proven his worth over his time with them regardless.

As her newest ally and her son's half-demon namesake walked out of the main sitting room to start their latest 'assignments', Piper frowned thoughtfully before turning to look at Chris. "OK, I get why giving Angel and Doyle a boost could be risky- I trust _them_ , but we can't be sure how their demon sides would react to anything- but I don't suppose there's any way I can… appoint Wesley my champion or something so that he can do a bit more to help out?"

"Not with the Titans already out," Chris shook his head grimly. "To gain that kind of power, Wesley would need to have proven himself to be a worthy follower of you as a goddess, which would involve him doing a lot of stuff in your name that we don't have the time for, and would rely on you opening yourself up to the power of a worshipper in a manner that wouldn't help you keep control of yourself anyway."

"Right…" Piper said, shaking her head in frustration as she looked briefly back at the door Wesley had walked through before turning her attention back to Chris. "Well, let's get going; my sisters aren't going to find themselves."


	62. The Titan War

Angel knew that this current approach wasn't entirely Paige's choice, given everything that Chris had said about the goddess powers influencing her actions, but he was currently torn between being impressed at the amount of allies she'd managed to gather and being disturbed at the cold efficiency of her progress.

"Paige," he said, looking uncertainly at her as he stood under a tree while she faced her assembled demonic forces, gathered from the underworld in a disturbingly short amount of time, "are you _sure_ -?"

"We have to work on this, Angel," Paige said, before she turned her attention back to the demons standing before her. "OK, come on, hit me with your best shot."

On that cue, a demon hurled an energy ball at Paige, who casually caught it in her hand and dispelled it with a simple flick of her wrist.

"Give me one firm spot on wish to stand and I will move the earth," she said with a grin, before she pointed her trident at the demon in question and vanquished him with a blast of lightning

"Archimedes said that. Great warrior. And he didn't even have a trident. OK, on your knees. Kiss the hand of the Paige."

"'The Paige'?" Angel repeated, even as the demons followed her instructions. "What are you-?"

"Trying to weed out the weak from the strong here, Angel," Paige said, looking impatiently at him for a moment before she turned back to the demons with a satisfied smirk. "Besides… being a goddess _does_ have its perks…"

Angel was saved from responding to that statement when leaves suddenly whirled up from the ground and Piper appeared, looking at her sister in exasperation.

"Paige," she said firmly, "what are you _doing_?"

"How'd you find me?" Paige asked.

"Apparently, one of my powers is to look out for you," the eldest Halliwell explained, before she glanced over at Angel. "Talking of which, you're OK over there, right?"

"Yeah, the shade's thick enough, and none of these guys want to actually _attack_ me…" Angel said, awkwardly indicating the demons gathered before them.

" _Hey_ ," Paige said, looking indignantly at Piper. "Y'know, I may be a goddess now, but I'm still going to keep an eye on my consort's safety-"

"By sticking him in front of an army of demons?" Piper countered, waving an arm at the assembled group. "What are you even _thinking_ here?"

"I was _thinking_ that it was better to fight the Titans _with_ the army of demons you just mentioned-" Paige began, before Piper waved her hand in frustration and the ground shook.

" _Out_!" she repeated firmly, prompting the demons to exchange anxious glances before they shimmered away.

"Hey!" Paige said. "I was just starting to enjoy being a general-"

"You can't be a general; you can't have soldiers _or_ followers, and I'm only tolerating the 'consort' bit because Angel was here before you got the rest," Piper said firmly, as she walked over to place a hand on Angel's arm. "Come on, we need to get back home and find Phoebe."

* * *

  
" _There_ you are!" Doyle said, looking at Piper, Paige and Angel in relief as they reappeared in the middle of the manor's entrance hall. "What took you so long?"

" _Certain_ people decided it was more important to assemble their own army than help us deal with the problem in front of us," Piper said, indicating Paige in frustration.

"We were-!" Paige began.

"Not getting anywhere," Angel interjected- the demon army had been a dangerous ploy from the beginning, even if he hadn't felt comfortable confronting Paige about it given her current mood- before he looked uncertainly at Doyle. "So… how's things?"

"What d'you think?" Doyle said in frustration. "I get to P3, and Phoebe's got all the bachelors at that auction biddin' on _her_ , and then she ended up… well, _here_."

"And that's a problem?" Angel asked, walking over to look in the other room before he stepped back, unsure if he was more disturbed at the number of men around Phoebe or how they seemed to be fawning over her so willingly. "Yeah, that's… not normal."

"Oh my God…" Piper groaned as she glanced into the room herself.

"You _do_ get that it's just their new powers making things… complicated, right?" Angel asked Doyle, stuck for anything else to do at this point other than reassure his friend as Piper stormed into the other room to talk to Phoebe.

"I get it, but that doesn't mean I _like_ it," Doyle noted, shaking his head in frustration as he heard Phoebe calmly responding to Piper's frustrated questions. "Worst part o' it is that some part o' me would _like_ to be with the rest of those sods; thinkin' Dad's side o' the family is the only reason I'm not fawning over her myself…"

"Correct," Chris noted, nodding in approval of Doyle's assessment. "To be perfectly blunt, demon worship doesn't generate quite the same kind of… energy as human worship, particularly not for the type of goddess that Phoebe's become. You're human enough to qualify as human in most spiritual matters- according to some of the people I've spoken to, anyway- but this is one of the greyer areas."

"Hey, I had demons following me-"

"You had demons _fearing_ you and obeying you because there was a bigger threat to deal with; it's not the same thing," Angel pointed out at Paige, before he looked back at Chris. "Look, we've got them all in one place; can we just focus on finding the Titans and getting everything back to normal?"

"If we can get _her_ to focus, maybe," Chris said, indicating the room where Piper and Phoebe were still arguing, just before a sudden gust of wind filled the interior of the house, followed by the assorted men running out the door.

"Some followers have no staying power," Paige mused, as Piper and Phoebe walked into the room to join them.

"Why did you have to do that?" Phoebe asked, actually pouting as she looked at Piper. "Serving me was making them all so happy…"

"You need to _focus_ ," Chris said firmly. "What would happen if the Titans attacked right now?"

"He may be getting on my nerves, but he _does_ have a point," Piper pointed out. "Leo did not give us this power so we could form armies or love cults; the ancient Greeks indulged in their whims that way and look what they became."

"Petty, evil, vindictive-" Chris began impatiently.

" _We get it_ ," Angel glared over at the time-traveller. "You had to know that this would be a risk; can you just _focus_ on giving us time to get it together rather than complaining that we're taking a while?"

"Reason and judgement are the qualities of a leader," Paige said suddenly. "Tacitus, 100 A.D."

"Love will keep us together. Captain and Tennille, 1970s," Phoebe added.

"Fascinating," Piper said dismissively. "Now, can we figure out a way to beat the Titans, 'cause I for one would like my family back, _soon_."

"Talkin' o' which, is there anything else we should know about this whole 'goddess' thing?" Doyle asked, indicating the three sisters. "I mean, they're packing the right oomph, but I've seen enough to know magic isn't _that_ simple…"

"Point," Piper said, nodding at Doyle before she looked at Chris. "Is there anything else we should know about these powers before we try and fight the Titans?"

"Uh…" Chris said, suddenly looking far less confident than he had before as he looked at the three sisters.

"You don't _know_?" Angel said, looking at the young man in exasperation. "You travelled through time to help us and you don't even _know_ what you're doing?"

"I convinced Leo to give you the power of the gods-!" Chris began.

"And then you don't know anything about how they can _use_ that power against the Titans and complain because they're not acting at their peak 'just' because Leo's missing," Angel glared at Chris in frustration. "You need to realise that the Charmed Ones work because they act as a _unit_ ; you can't just give them an upgrade and hope that will be enough to make a difference. Maybe Leo plays a vital part in that dynamic, but we _all_ have our roles to play here; you can't just come in here to order us around and ask us to accept _you_ as a substitute."

"You need to see the bigger picture-!"

"And _you_ need to see that there is no bigger picture without our family," Piper said, glaring firmly at Chris. "I get that you probably had a crap life in your timeline, but you can't blame us for that!"

"I just want you to get it right this time!" Chris countered. "You need to use the Power of Three. You need to use your power as gods. You need to save the world from going to Hell!"

"Which means they need to _be_ gods," Wesley suddenly said as he walked down from the attic.

"Pardon?" Doyle asked, looking at Wesley in confusion. "I thought they already _were_ gods?"

"In terms of power, yes, but as we all know, magic such as this has its own set of rules," Wesley explained, before he looked solemnly at the three Halliwells. "I was doing some research on the original gods and their battle with the Titans, and… well, in a nutshell, you aren't going to win any fight with the Titans as things stand because you haven't _declared_ yourselves as gods; you're still holding back out of fear of what you could become, and thus restricting your access to your powers. I appreciate that fear, of course, but you have to remember; Leo chose you three for this for a reason; unlike last time, you were selected based on personal knowledge rather than… heroic reputations or anything like that."

"Exactly!" Doyle said, grinning enthusiastically at Phoebe. "Pheeb, you overcame a dark wedding an' the darkest love ever because of your love for your sisters; you're _perfect_ for this goddess of love gig once you dial down the harem!"

"I… never thought of it that way," Phoebe mused as she looked down at herself.

"You need to," Angel said, before he turned to Paige. "And Paige, I've spent the past couple of years helping you train to fight demons, but you've never let the power you gained consume you into becoming something you're not."

"Precisely," Wesley said, as he looked over at Piper. "And as for Piper… well, as far as Leo's concerned, she's proven herself to be the ideal mother by any standard, correct?"

"Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a fight-" Piper began.

"Why not?" Wesley countered. "Like any good mother, you'll go to any lengths to protect your child; the fact that you're the Earth goddess just means that you're essentially the 'mother' for the whole planet, but all that really means is an adjustment of scale."

"Right…" Piper said, nodding awkwardly at Wesley's praise even as she and her sisters looked thoughtfully at each other. "It's… something to think about, right?"

"Less thinking, more doing; we've still got to-" Chris began.

" _Wait_ ," Piper said, holding up a hand as she glared at Chris before she looked back at Phoebe and Paige. "If we do this, we need to go in _knowing_ what to expect; no matter the temptation, we _can't_ let our instincts control us."

"Right," Paige said firmly. "Surgical strike; get in, kick some ass, and get out when they're down. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Phoebe said resolutely.

"OK," Piper said, closing her eyes and raising her head for a moment before she looked sharply back at her sisters. "Got them."

With that command, the three sisters vanished in a swirl of energy, closely followed by Chris orbing after them, leaving Angel, Wesley and Doyle to look uncertainly at each other.

"Always sucks when you can't cut the mustard in a fight, huh?" Doyle noted.

"To say the least," Angel said, shrugging in frustration.

"Do you think they can do it?" Wesley asked, suddenly looking apprehensively at the other two men. "I really was mostly guessing about the reasons for the limits on their abilities…"

"Wes," Angel smiled reassuringly at his new ally, "in the time since you've been here, you haven't been wrong about something yet; you've given us what you found so far, and we just have to have faith that it will be enough."

Despite his positive words, Angel had to make an effort to conceal his apprehension at the thought of what they were waiting for; if the sisters couldn't stop the Titans now, things were going to get _really_ unpleasant…

The fear almost didn't even have time to build before the sisters reappeared once again, Piper panting as though she'd just run a marathon but otherwise unharmed.

"Uh… should we be worried?" Doyle asked, looking uncertainly at Phoebe.

"'Worried'?" Phoebe repeated with a grin. "Not only had those silly Titans already killed one of their own before we even got there, but once Piper started thinking about those things killing Wyatt, well…"

"It was over before we could even do anything," Paige practically pouted as she leaned on her trident. "I mean, we appreciated your pep talk, but once Piper really let rip on those guys, she'd dropped them into a massive fissure before Phoebe and I even _needed_ to do anything."

"Ah," Angel said, looking at Piper in surprise, suddenly unsure how to feel about this news. "Uh… good job?"

"Thanks," Piper said, looking around the room in an impatient manner. "So where's Leo in all this?"

"First things first," Chris said, holding up an urn as he looked between the three sisters. "It's time to relinquish those powers."

"Fine," Paige said, sighing in relief as a golden light when from her into the urn as Chris opened the lid, leaving her restored to her usual appearance as she glanced down at herself. "Glad _that's_ over with."

"Tell me about it," Phoebe confirmed, after Chris had repeated the action and her attire and hair had returned to normal. "I mean, those guys fawning over me was nice at first, but _all_ the time?"

"Yeah, yeah, the problems of power, we get it," Piper said, as her own powers were returned to the urn before she looked resolutely at Chris. "OK, we've got that out of the way; what about Leo?"

"I'm here," the familiar voice of their Whitelighter said, only for all six of the group to be surprised when they turned around and saw Leo wearing robes that they'd only ever seen being worn by Elders in the past, looking at them with an almost sheepish expression.

"Leo," Piper said, with a warning tone to her voice, "that better not mean what I think it means…"

"It does," Leo said, looking awkwardly down at his new attire. "Believe me, I wasn't expecting it either, but-"

"Hold on a minute; Leo's an _Elder_?" Doyle repeated incredulously. "How'd _that_ happen?"

"A reward for his role in saving the other Elders and the world in general," Chris explained, shrugging as he looked at the group. "Hey, you all actually performed far better than anyone expected; they had to give you _something_."

"And that 'gift' was to take Leo _away_ from his _family_?" Piper practically spat as she glared at Chris.

"The world needs sources of good to protect it," Chris explained. "Can you think of a greater source of good than Leo?"

"But… OK, when you put it like that, we just sound petty an' stubborn…" Doyle said, shaking his head in frustration. "Y'know, it was a lot easier when I didn't have anyone to care about…"

"Doyle," Leo said, glaring firmly at the Brachen demon before he turned to look at his wife. "Piper, you have to understand, if I had a choice, I'd choose you every time, but they need me up there to help restore order, and I could have only achieved this strength thanks to everything I've been blessed with because of our love. I don't _want_ to leave you, Piper, but our love lifted me up so high that this was the only possible result. This was never my destiny, but I'm here because of you… and, even if I wish I could stay, I can't. Not after all this."

"I can't just give up…" Piper said, starting to tear up as she looked at her husband. "I don't know how…"

Exchanging uncomfortable glances with each other, Paige, Angel, Phoebe, Doyle and Wesley quickly backed out of the room, Wesley taking a last quick glance at one corner of the room to confirm that Chris had left as well.

Even if they all understood that Leo was being called up for a great magical purpose, that didn't make it any easier for them to say goodbye to their friend and brother…

* * *

  
Standing in the hall after healing Piper of her emotional pain, Leo wished that he could be as certain of his promotion to Elder as he had been when he'd been 'promoted' to the position of the Charmed Ones' Whitelighter. The first position had been a great honour, but it still hadn't really changed much of his life apart from giving him a new focus; the revelation that he was now an Elder had changed so much, and unlike last time, he wasn't entirely sure _what_ he was meant to do with himself now…

He'd do his best to keep an eye on Wyatt in particular, but he'd also have to learn how to keep his distance from Piper to make the transition easier on her in particular. As much as he hated to acknowledge it, she'd have a right to move on after he left, particularly with him working to ease her pain at his loss, and he couldn't expect her to do that if he constantly showed up whenever he wanted.

Still, he was leaving them at a good point in their lives, all things considered. All three of the sisters had fulfilling careers outside of their lives as witches, Phoebe and Paige had some very… interesting relationships that were able to contribute and teach them how to explore other ways of doing things, and even Angel, Doyle and Wesley had come to be friends over time, even if he wasn't officially assigned to them.

"Hey," Chris said, orbing in beside Leo to look critically at him. "Taking in the sights one last time?"

"I'll come back," Leo said, deciding not to elaborate on that statement as he looked at the mysterious time-travelling Whitelighter. "Anyway, the Elders have voted on your fate; considering that your timeline no longer exists, and in light of your role in recent events, it's been decided to make you the Charmed Ones' new Whitelighter."

"They did?" Chris said, with what could have been honest surprise.

"Somehow, I figured you knew that," Leo said, looking at Chris in an appraising manner. "You know, I have to wonder how much of this was your plan…"

"I'm just here to save the world," Chris said, looking defensively at Leo before he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "And speaking of preparing for the future, is it really a good idea to have a vampire-?"

" _Don't_ ," Leo said, looking firmly at Chris. "I respect your help in this battle, but Angel has been there for us for the last two years, and the only reason he reverted back to Angelus was because of extraordinary circumstances that we've taken every precaution to prevent happening again. He's helped Paige grow as a witch, he's given us all new ideas about facing threats we could never have imagined, and we've all grown because of what he's had to offer us; you do _not_ get to come here and criticise what Angel is because you don't like it, no matter how helpful you've been."

"Sure," Chris said, nodding slightly at Leo in acknowledgement.

"Don't forget," Leo said, looking resolutely at the younger man. "I'll be watching over you as well."

With that said, he closed his eyes and orbed away…

* * *

  
As Leo departed, Chris waved his hand to cast the necessary spell to send Leo where he needed to be; the knowledge he'd receive as an Elder could be useful later, but he needed more training in combat before he assumed that role, just in case things didn't turn out like he was planning.

As methods of infiltrating your family's past went, separating your parents might be an extreme option, but taking on the role of the family Whitelighter was the only option he had if he wanted to keep an eye on Wyatt without attracting attention. So long as Leo kept an eye on his son- something that he had never had _any_ trouble doing when it came to Wyatt, in Chris's experience- it should be all right in the end.

The only problem he had to worry about now was the trouble of seeing Angelus's face every day and _not_ orbing him into the sunlight before he could kill Paige…


End file.
